


Hate in the wind, Love in the heart

by sweeternong



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, Swearing, Wind Spirits, make out, not ancient china, sorry for oocness TT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26632858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeternong/pseuds/sweeternong
Summary: This is my take on the prompt: Fantasy AU where they are forbidden to see each other but they are in love.---In a world where wind spirits exist, Fan Chengcheng was born into the powerful Fan Family of the southern realm while Huang Minghao was born into the powerful Huang family of the northern realm.The two major realms despise each other but being the troublemaker that he was, it was never Chengcheng's plan to follow his family's tradition.And of course, because Huang Minghao loves him, he would definitely do the same.
Relationships: Cai Xukun/Zhu Zhengting | Jung Jung, Fan Chengcheng/Huang Minghao | Justin, Lin Yanjun/You Zhangjing, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Wang Linkai | Xiao Gui/Zheng Ruibin
Kudos: 15
Collections: Cloud 9 Fic Fest





	1. A perfect occasion (mistake is not forever a miss)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, I am writing for the cloud9 fict festival so I hope you will give other stories in this collection a read too!
> 
> Before I start this fanfiction, I would like to once again clarify that this fanfic is set in modern time instead of ancient China and the only reason the characters are dressed in traditional clothing is because they are spirits and I'm making use of the concept of Gods that you may have seen in animes where gods/spirits are often still potrayed in traditional clothings despite existing in modern times. 
> 
> And I would also like to thank my amazing beta reader ElSolFlorecer for her hard work and please do check her works too if u have time!!
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy!

The first time Chengcheng heard him, it wasn’t some kind of beautiful miracles. He often heard the other wind spirits around gossip about him, about the beautiful voices of humans that sometimes got caught up in the common wind channel.

Chengcheng had never tried them for himself, having been too busy with practicing his power all this time but he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t curious.

And hey, Chengcheng also had an image to maintain, though he looked foolish most of the time, what would people say if they see one of the powerful Fan Family spirits snooping around the common wind channel looking for beautiful voices to hear.

His sister would surely murder him if she ever found out. No one could walk away unscathed after messing with Fan Bingbing even if you were her own brother.

So, after much contemplation on his part and also a strong push from his curious mind which always refused to back down, Chengcheng finally gathered the courage to sneak out of the Zephyr palace.

The Zephyr palace was where the most powerful southern wind spirit families live. Currently, the palace was occupied by 9 different families and the Fan family, led by his sister Fan Bingbing, was the most powerful one.

Being a powerful wind spirit was not something that was easily hidden. Wherever they go, other wind spirits, especially less powerful ones, could easily tell that they belong to a different class than them.

While for more powerful wind spirits, it was less easy to detect if there were any other powerful wind spirits nearby.

The concept of sensing power is somehow a bit similar to humans’ concept of heat flow except that instead of temperature, the one detected is power. The bigger the difference in power between two wind spirits, the bigger is the surge of power that the weaker being will experience.

Chengcheng as a wind spirit was, not to brag or anything, quite powerful which basically meant that there was a 90% chance that he would get caught on the way.

He had no plan and no idea how he would safely make it to the common wind channel without getting recognized by anyone but the mini expenditure, in Chengcheng’s opinion, was still worth trying.

And after spending an hour of running around like crazy, wearing three layers of covering in the middle of summer and almost suffocating to death, Chengcheng finally reached the common wind channel.

Wind spirits lived in floating islands high above the sky so the channel in this case didn’t mean land masses around a river or anything like that. The common wind channel, or wind channel in general since there were many different types just basically means the wind current that spirits used to communicate with each other.

To put it simply, the wind channel was kind of like the telephone system of the wind spirits world.

But unlike the human telephone system that was more precise and accurate, the wind channel was much more prone to picking up some unwanted stuff that came from both the wind spirits realm and also the human realm.

The most common thing that the wind channel would pick up were human songs. Lots of wind spirits would gather around the channel at night just to listen to free concerts from the realm below.

More rarely, the wind channel would also pick up gossips from the human world. These gossips were, most of the time, petty gossips like ‘my sister got a new boyfriend again’ or ‘Susan got a nose job’, these irrelevant things that many jobless female wind spirits were actually invested in.

Very rarely though, the wind channel could pick up important noises such as strategies or military plan from another wind spirits realm.

The royal wind channel, the upgraded and more secure version, would sometimes be used to try and spy on other countries. They were both better at picking up stuff and also more secure than the common wind channel.

Chengcheng sat himself under one of the trees in the groovier section of the common wind channel. Wind spirits won’t usually visit this area as it was located quite deep into the forest and who knew what kind of dangerous creatures might attack them while they were there.

Such danger was not a problem for Chengcheng though as he had been trained to fight many different creatures and was just more powerful than the average in general.

‘Finally,’ Chengcheng slumped himself lazily on the floor, sprawling all his limbs like a starfish. Even with all the extra layers of covering gone, Chengcheng could still feel the heat from all the running around.

‘No one is around right?’ Chengcheng raised his head to look around him and surely it was all empty. A crazy idea suddenly popped in his mind.

Chengcheng must not be thinking straight when he began loosening the knot of his belt that effectively also loosened the clothing around his body. He then shook the garments off his shoulder completely, leaving him with just his pants on.

The current heat-stricken Fan Chengcheng could only think of how to cool his own body down.

For a royal wind spirit, being caught snooping around the common wind channel was already a shameful thing. Being caught half-naked while snooping around the channel? Nobody had ever been caught doing that but it must be the worst embarrassment a spirit could ever experience in their life.

After about ten minutes, when all the sweat had done a good job evaporating and bringing all the heat away, Chengcheng finally sat up from where he was lying down on the ground.

He was finally more sane, well not sane enough to put his clothes back on yet but at least he wasn’t sprawled on the dirty ground anymore.

Chengcheng closed his eyes and began to focus his mind, connecting it to the nearby wind current.

He had never done this before (Yes, he wasn’t even allowed to use the royal wind channel because they didn’t trust him enough), so he wasn’t sure that he was doing it right. Chengcheng was just trying out the theory he read over a book a few days ago.

‘Focus, focus, focus.’

Chengcheng, despite being so powerful, actually had the attention span of a goldfish. He would never be able to study if not for the fact that Bingbing would literally sit next to him and watch him complete all his works.

Some more minutes passed and Chengcheng still couldn’t pick up anything. It was getting boring just sitting down and closing his eyes.

‘All that effort for nothing?’

Chengcheng was slightly mad at the curious part of his brain for urging him to do all this. He should have never listened to his irrational thoughts.

Just when Chengcheng was about to give up, he finally heard them. He finally heard a voice.

But it wasn’t a heavenly singing voice like what the common wind spirits would gossip about. No, it was nothing close to that.

_ “Jia ru wo nian shao you wei zhi jin tu-“ _

The singer had at least three voice cracks while singing that sentence. Chengcheng really did regret his existence at that moment.

_ “cai bu hui rang ni ti wo shou zui-” _

Another two voice cracks. Yep, Chengcheng had heard enough, now he needed to figure out how to disconnect.

_ “hun li shang duo he ji bei-“ _

Chengcheng could tell that the song was reaching a climax. He really needed to disconnect soon. Vega, Altair or any of the God out there that Chengcheng never gave any offering to before, please help him. He promised that he would pray to them diligently from here onwards.

_ “HE NI XIAN ZAI NA WEIIIIIIIIIII-“ _

“ARGHHHHHH,” Chengcheng screamed in pain when he heard the singer’s voice crack as he tried to sing the higher part of the song.

The line immediately went silent after that. For a second, Chengcheng thought that he was already disconnected but was proven wrong when a voice suddenly sounded through the channel again,

“Who is there?”

Chengcheng almost couldn’t recognize the owner of the voice without all the voice cracks and bad control but he was sure that this voice belonged to the previously singing boy.

“Who are you, how can you reach me?”

Chengcheng never recalled that any human could reply back using the wind channel. Could it be that the boy on the other side of the line is not a human?

“How can you reply back?”

“Answer my question first, you prick.”

Wow, this boy was rude. Chengcheng never thought that he would ever meet someone who dared to act like this to him aside from Wang Linkai, oh he was so wrong.

“How dare you call me prick? Do you even know who I am?”

Chengcheng never liked boasting about his status as anything. He was always the friendly, idiotic Chengcheng in everyone’s eyes. He figured that this was the time he should be acting like a royal bastard that his family would sometimes encourage him to act like.

“Do you even know who I am?”

The boy asked back and Chengcheng might be hallucinating it, but he could feel a sudden surge of power coming from the other boy’s voice through the channel. This boy was powerful.

“Are you a wind spirit?”

Chengcheng asked carefully and the line went silent once again. Was he really disconnected this time?

“You are a wind spirit too?”

The other boy asked. He didn’t exactly answer Chengcheng’s question but that answer pretty much summed up the point.

“Are you a royal?”

Chengcheng asked. That was a stupid question, there was no way the other spirit was a royal, no royal would use a common wind channel.

“You are not? Then how do you find me?”

Okay, so the other spirit was a royal. What the fuck so Chengcheng had suucesfully infiltrate a royal wind channel on his first try and not to mention it was using a common wind channel that was very rarely used before?

Chengcheng could sense the other spirit’s power seeping into the connection again. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t the slightest bit scared.

“C-calm down, calm down, I don’t mean any harm. I’m just here to listen to some music and to answer your question, I’m also a royal. Please don’t kill me, I am important, if you kill me then there will be war.”

Chengcheng started panicking that he began to ramble. Actually, it was almost impossible to kill someone through a wind channel unless you were like, ten times stronger than Fan Bingbing, the most you could probably do was cause slight harm to them as a warning not to eavesdrop ever again.

“Hahaha, yeah of course, I’m just joking. I am not that strong, I can’t kill you yet.”

Was that supposed to be comforting? This didn’t sound very comforting in Chengcheng’s opinion. This boy was dangerous.

“Should we introduce ourselves?”

The last time Chengcheng was ever this scared of someone was when he was five and met Wang Linkai for the first time. The boy had such sharp eyes and just generally an evil face (Note: this was in the point of view of five-year-old Fan Chengcheng) that Chengcheng just started crying before they could even introduce themselves properly.

Chengcheng was used to growing up as a powerful person in a safe environment. He was always far from danger, protected and safe in his home in Zephyr palace. The most danger he could face was probably getting lectured by his jiejie.

He had never expected that the next time he encountered danger; it was in the form of a pre-puberty wind spirit whose voice cracks three times in a single sentence.

“Sure, you go first,” the other spirit said cheerily but Chengcheng was already terrified that he thought that the fake cheeriness sounded even scarier.

“I’m Fan Chengcheng-“

“Southern wind spirit?”

And there came the aggression again. To all the Gods out there that Chengcheng had never properly prayed to before, please help him disconnect from this line.

“Are you a spy?”

Chengcheng wasn’t the smartest but based on what the other spirit was saying, he must not be a southern spirit.

And based on how much aggression he was showing, Chengcheng could only guess that the other spirit must be a Northern wind spirit.

So, not only did Chengcheng manage to interfere with a royal wind channel on his first try, he also managed to interfere with a northern wind channel. What the fuck, was Chengcheng crazy lucky or what?

The northern and southern wind realms had been at odds with each other for a very long time. Every day, a team of powerful wind spirits in Zephyr palace would dedicate their time trying to connect and infiltrate through the royal northern wind channel.

One of Chengcheng’s older friends, Lin Yanjun was a part of this team. Lin Yanjun was smart, he was fluent in at least eighty different languages and many more dialects. That was the main reason he was hired for the team.

Lin Yanjun had been around for about three hundred years and had been doing this job for around a hundred years or so and even he had said that the amount of royal infiltration that he had managed to infiltrate a royal wind channel hadn’t reached a thousand yet.

And at times when he was successful, he would get kicked out of said channel in less than 10 seconds max. The longest he had been in a channel was around one and a half minutes which had led them to winning the war 150 years ago.

If Chengcheng remembered correctly, he had been connected with the other boy for more than five minutes already and was yet to be kicked out.

Chengcheng wasn't sure why but maybe it was because the other spirit didn’t think that he was dangerous enough.

“I- I am not, I swear I am just here to listen to some songs from the human world. Connecting to you was a pure coincidence, I swear!”

Being cowardly was shameful but when did Fan Chengcheng ever care? He was strong but that never stopped him from acting like a coward from time to time and besides, Chengcheng could feel that the other boy was stronger than him.

“Yeah, I think I can tell.”

That sounded like an insult but Chengcheng had no guts to rebuke it so he just stayed silent.

“I’m Huang Minghao by the way, nice to meet you.”

Huang, oh my god. No wonder he was so aggressive before. The Huang family was basically like the Fan family of the northern wind spirits. When Chengcheng said he caught a big fish, he really did catch a big fish.

“How old are you?” Chengcheng didn’t mean to be rude but he was really curious about whether Minghao’s ugly voice cracks were because he was going through puberty or he was just a bad singer.

“I’m fifteen! How about you?”

Chengcheng was lowkey terrified. The Minghao he was currently talking to was so different from the aggressive Minghao he was talking to just seconds ago.

“I’m seventeen.”

“Wow, we are close in age. Let’s be friends!”

Chengcheng had no idea how they could be friends when their family would murder each other on sight. Not to mention, they could never physically meet each other and Chengcheng doubts they would get as lucky getting connected to each other again in the future.

Back then Linkai had told him that he once met a fellow wind spirit through the royal channel. Said wind spirit’s name was Zheng Ruibin and he was an eastern wind spirit. They had connected so well and for a whole week before Ruibin disappeared forever. Linkai had thought that Ruibin had either hated him or well, dead.

It wasn’t until two years later that Ruibin showed up on Linkai’s doorstep with a bunch of courting gifts that he finally knew the boy was still alive. Chengcheng remembered being so flabbergasted that someone would propose to a spirit he had just known for a week after two years.

Linkai, who had just woken up from his sleep, immediately rejected the other boy and Chengcheng had never felt so much pity to someone before except to Linkai’s older brother by a hundred years, Ziyi, who had been pining at Zhangjing for fifty years while said man was already engaged to Lin Yanjun for twenty years.

“Let’s get to know each other better first, yeah?”

Linkai had said with a smile. That day, the two established a proper Royal wind channel and had been in touch ever since. Chengcheng guessed they would be engaged for real very soon.

“How are we even going to talk again?”

“I’ll figure out a way, for now let’s just have fun!”

Well, there was no use worrying about the future he guessed so he just went with what Minghao just said and the two started exchanging information to each other.

The two of them were careful enough not to share too much about their family or just any realm related stuff in general. Instead, they talked much about the people around them.

Chengcheng told Minghao about his friends, about Yanjun, Ziyi, and Zhangjing’s romance stories, about Chen Linong who was a talented orphan that was adopted by the Lin family, about Ruibin and Xiao Gui. Their lives were pretty amusing in Chengcheng’s opinion.

Minghao also told him about the people around him. He told him about his half-brother, Zhengting and his husband Xukun, about his cousin Wenjun who was about to get into an arranged marriage with someone from the western wind realm, and about his sibling Huang Xinchun and his two friends, Quanzhe and Zeren.

It felt nice talking to Minghao even though he was just basically retelling stories about his life, everything somehow just seemed a lot more fun. Minghao also seemed to be enjoying it based on the loud laughter he let out as Chengcheng was talking.

Chengcheng had initially planned to stay for about thirty minutes or so just listening to the songs from the human world but instead, he stayed for hours until the sun finally set and he realized that he would be dead if he didn’t come to dinner that night.

The two said goodbye with a promise to keep in touch soon, something that would probably never happen.

As he sneaked back home, Chengcheng tried to ignore the emptiness he felt and also the echoing laughter of a certain Huang Minghao in his brain.

❁❀❁

“Where were you all day?”

Bingbing asked as she was cutting the steak on her plate. His sister liked to eat her steak raw and when blood started oozing from the cut, Chengcheng could only wish that it wouldn’t be his blood that would be flowing next.

“I was listening to... some music.”

Chengcheng had come to dinner late because going back unnoticed by other wind spirits was a harder task than he thought. Had it not been for the fact that he saw Ziyi riding on his sword on the way back and asked him to take him back home, Chengcheng would probably miss out on the whole dinner.

“You went to the common wind channel?”

Bingbing raised her voice slightly and Chengcheng could see that half the occupants of the room immediately flinched. Everyone was equally as terrified at her anger as Chengcheng himself.

“What did I ever tell you about playing around in that place?”

This was Chengcheng’s third time experiencing this kind of power-seeping-aggression today and that was probably the reason why though he was terrified, Chengcheng wasn’t as terrified at his sister as he would normally be.

And maybe, for the first time in his life, the encounter with Minghao also made Chengcheng realize that there might be someone stronger than his sister out there.

The strength of ‘power-seeping-aggression’ that Bingbing was releasing right now was almost of the same strength as the one Minghao was releasing to Chengcheng over a wind channel. Over a wind channel with thousands of kilometers between them.

And the scariest thing was that Minghao was only fifteen while Fan Bingbing was almost a thousand years old.

Such power at such a young age could threaten the southern kingdom so much. If Bingbing found out about Minghao then she would surely try to assassinate him before he could grow any stronger.

Chengcheng knew he shouldn’t let his sister find out about Minghao for- actually Chengcheng wasn’t sure for whose safety. He wasn’t sure who would win if the two fought and he wasn’t keen on letting it happen.

“I’m sorry Jiejie, I was just trying to listen to some music from the human world,” Chengcheng replied. Well, he wasn’t technically lying, he tried to listen to some music but he ended up talking to someone else.

“You can use our royal channel to do that, don’t let me catch you snooping around there ever again,” Bingbing warned. 

Chengcheng doubts the royal highly enchanted royal wind channel would pick up human singing noises but that wasn’t the problem right now.

Using the royal wind channel means that he could never contact Minghao again and Chengcheng didn’t want that.

Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t even sure he could ever meet Minghao again even if he was using the common wind channel but a small part of him was still hoping that some sort of miracle could happen and the wind channel picked up some interference from Minghao’s royal wind channel.

“Okay, jie,” yeah no, Chengcheng was still going to snoop around. His sister loved him too much she wouldn’t actually kill him for snooping around again. She would probably beat him up a bit and that was it.

But if she caught him talking to someone from the northern wind realm then she wouldn’t be the only one killing him, the whole country would probably want him dead. Not to mention that the northern spirit was a royal, that would be considered treason already.

The rest of the dinner passed by peacefully. Chengcheng had eaten so much that he thought his stomach was going to explode, he even had a hard time walking back to his room from all the pain his stomach was causing him.

“Oi, Cheng,” Linkai called, jogging slightly to reach Chengcheng before enveloping him in a one-arm hug. Unfortunately, Linkai’s body bumped into Chengcheng’s body with a bit too much force that he almost vomited out due to the impact.

“Be careful bro, one wrong move you might get half-digested food all over you,” Chengcheng muttered and Linkai immediately released the hug in both fear and disgust. He settled to just walking on Chengcheng’s left.

“So, what exactly did you do earlier?”

Sometime around his 17 th birthday, the Gods had blessed Linkai with an ability called the “Eyes of Gods” which basically meant that he was a living lie detector.

Only very few spirits actually got blessed during their 17 th birthday and Chengcheng wasn’t one of them. There were only two people he knew that actually received God's blessings, one being Linkai and the other was Yanjun which was the reason why he was able to fluently speak so many languages.

“Let’s talk in your room.”

In the corridor or literally anywhere in the Zephyr palace except for private bedrooms and meeting rooms, there would always be someone watching or listening to you. The phrase “walls have eyes and ears” was a literal thing in this place.

The only reason why private bedrooms and meeting rooms were the safest place was because wind spirits usually put most enchantments there to prevent any kind of eavesdropping, unauthorized entry or getting their whispers picked up by a wind channel.

Linkai just nodded in response and didn’t ask any further. He automatically knew that anything that this matter must be really really private.

The two spent the rest of the walk in silence which was unusual because they were usually the loudest duo in their bunch. Something was definitely up with Chengcheng.

“So, what did you actually do?” Linkai finally asked after they both had entered the room and the older boy had finished chanting out extra enhancements in the room.

Linkai was one of the best spell masters amongst the wind spirits though he was somewhat weak in terms of sword fighting. An already enchanted room plus a few extra more enhancements were the equivalent of a really, really safe place.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that I was checking out the common wind channel but there are more to the stories than that,” Chengcheng began carefully. 

Now that he was fully down from the high of meeting Minghao, the more rational part of his brain began to warn him that his earlier interaction might be considered a traitorous act by few.

“What did you do?” Chengcheng was so used to just fooling around with the older boy that he was a bit shocked by the sudden serious expression on the wind spirit’s face. A serious Linkai meant really serious business.

“I got connected to someone just like how you got connected to Ruibin but this someone wasn’t just an ordinary spirit.”

Chengcheng noticed Linkai’s slight blush at the mention of Ruibin’s name but that redness was gone as fast as they appeared.

“Who did you meet?” Linkai was back to his previous serious face. Chengcheng hoped he wouldn’t regret telling the smaller wind spirit about this.

“Huang Minghao.”

Much to Chengcheng’s surprise, Linkai looked confused at the mention of the northern wind spirit’s name.

“Who?” That was weird.

“Huang Minghao, a royal wind spirit from the northern realm.”

At the mention of the northern realm, Linkai immediately tensed. Chengcheng half-expected this, he was talking from a supposed enemy afterall.

The room’s atmosphere suddenly felt so heavy and Chengcheng might be tripping but he could sense a slight power leak from Linkai. The smaller wind spirit was never one to show off his power unlike his jiejie who liked to exude power all the time.

Linkai was always good at controlling his magical power, he was so good that he could literally blend in with other common wind spirits perfectly.

The fact that his power was currently leaking must be a very, very clear sign of warning.

“Chengcheng,” Linkai began nervously. He had his head ducked down; eyes unable to look up at Chengcheng.

Chengcheng also noticed that the other wind spirit already had one of his hands on his magic staff, presumably to ready himself for attack if needed.

Chengcheng really didn’t want to fight with his friend.

“Are you commiting treason?”

“No,” Chengcheng answered immediately. He tried to make himself sound as convincing as possible just because he was scared Linkai wouldn’t believe him and would start attacking him.

“I know you wouldn’t but what the fuck, Cheng?”

Just like that, the tension between them was gone. Linkai’s power was back in control and Chengcheng could finally breathe a sigh in relief.

“I met him by accident and I actually had some fun talking to him.”

Few years ago, Chengcheng had ridiculed Linkai for being so attached to his ‘online’ friend. Now that he had experienced a similar encounter, Chengcheng realized that meeting someone you just click with did feel so nice.

“Pot kettle back,” Linkai snorted. He must still be salty about Chengcheng's mockery back then.

“Keep this a secret.”

Chengcheng knew Linkai wasn’t a blabber mouth when it came to his close friend’s secret, he was always so protective of them, he just felt the need to reinforce the fact.

“Of course, of course, though I really want to tell Yanjun ge, imagine his reaction if he found out that a mere Fan Chengcheng, the resident idiot, had managed to connect himself with a royal wind spirit- ah wait a Huang wind spirit for three hours. He must be really, really jealous.”

The two of them laughed at the thought. Yanjun had always prided himself over that five minutes connection and everyone liked to stroke his ego by mentioning it. He would be so heartbroken if he found out that Fan Chengcheng had beaten that record by a far bigger margin.

“How did you even sneak out in the first place?” Linkai asked. There was no escaping this, Chengcheng must tell him the embarrassing truth since Linkai was a living lie detector.

And so, Chengcheng began to tell him about his three layers of covering incident and getting half-naked in the middle of the forest. Linkai had laughed so loud the whole way that there were tears in his eyes.

It was an embarrassing story but Chengcheng had spent all his life doing embarrassing things with Linkai. This was nothing compared to all the things that they had done before.

“All right, I’m sleepy. Good night, bro.” Linkai finally said after Chengcheng finished telling his story. Chengcheng had skipped many details about Minghao throughout his stories but Linkai didn’t bother trying to dig things up. He really did trust him and Chengcheng appreciated it so much.

“Good night too bro.”

And with that, Chengcheng finally left the room. It was almost midnight already and the open corridors of the palace were almost void of people save from the few people returning back to their respective rooms like Chengcheng himself.

Chengcheng leaned himself on one of the red fences (Chengcheng didn’t understand why a palace full of wind spirits who could literally float ever needs one but he figured that it was a nice piece of decoration) lining up the hallway to look at the view in front of him.

The full moon was always beautiful from up here, on the floating islands when no clouds were present to block the view.

Gentle breeze was blowing on Chengcheng’s long hair, swaying it lightly in the rhythm of the night while the queen was casting a faint glow on him.

That night, Chengcheng felt powerful, something about him just felt different. That time, he thought that the giddiness he felt was just a feeling of excitement from getting a new friend. He never expected that the tingling sensation he felt that night was a blessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fan chengcheng naughty boy but that got him a bf (bestfriend) :3


	2. I dream of your beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Chengcheng, the only way to meet his best friend (i.e love of his life) was through the common wind channel.
> 
> To the ever powerful Minghao, limit doesn't exist. If what he wants is a meeting with Chengcheng then a meeting with the older is what he gets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story so far!

Wind Spirits don’t usually get dreams and when they do get one, they must mean something.

That night, Chengcheng was expecting the usual dreamless sleep. In all 17 years of his life, he never had a single dream so when Chengcheng finally got a dream for the first time, saying that he was surprised would be an understatement.

“one, zero, eight, three, se-“

That surely was a weird dream. Zhangjing had told him about dreams before and they usually consist of the weirdest, weird things that could usually be interpreted into something by the dream master.

Zhangjing once told him that he dreamt of walking in a giant roses garden. Standing on one side of the garden were the southern wind spirits, knives coated with bright red blood and on the other end were the northern wind spirits, most of them fallen on the grounds and some were hanging in the air, having been pierced by the thorn of the giant roses.

To Zhangjing, that dreamt was a traumatic one, the elder had woken up drenched in cold sweat and screaming. He didn’t recover until two weeks had passed.

To other southern wind spirits, the dream was a blessing. The meaning of the dream couldn’t be more obvious; the victory of southern spirits over northern spirits in the upcoming war.

And they did win, the biggest victory the southern spirits had ever experienced. This was also the same battle where Lin Yanjun had successfully spied on the enemy. That day, the two were crowned the nation’s hero.

“-ven, seven, four, five, zero, three...”

The voice immediately disappeared after the word three was spoken and at the same time, Chengcheng finally woke up from his sleep.

He squinted his eyes slightly at the sudden brightness that greeted him, moving one of his hands to cover his still adjusting eyes.

As Chengcheng’s mind started to awaken, he could finally register the things going on around him. The birds chirping, the loud shouting in the distance, the barking of dogs plus the blinding light attacking his eyesight; there could only be one conclusion, morning had come.

‘All those number countings took seven hours?’

Chengcheng thought incredulously. He didn’t even know what those numbers were the moment he woke up. What a waste of one night.

Chengcheng stretched his stiff body as he prepared himself to get out of bed. Going back to bed sounded like a good option at the moment but it seemed that all the sleepiness had left him the moment he woke up five minutes ago.

As he slowly turned his body from left to right, something on the nightstand caught his eyes. It was a memo pad that he bought from the market a few days ago. He had bought it because Chengcheng tends to forget things and Zhangjing had told him that such a tool was good for reminding him of his tasks.

Well, Chengcheng still forgets things after he used the item so he hadn’t really used them for the past few days.

‘Are these numbers?’

Chengcheng slowly picked the memo pad up and sure enough there were numbers written on them. A sequence of ten numbers, just like the one he dreamt of before.

0813774503

‘Did I sleep talk?’

Chengcheng wasn’t sure what was the term used for doing things unconsciously (the only thing that came to his mind was possession but wind spirits very rarely got possessed so Chengcheng doubted that was the case) but holy shit, he had just done it.

‘What did this number mean?’

Clearly this didn’t seem like it was the result of one of those rare prophetic dreams like the one Zhangjing had experienced but dreams also rarely didn’t mean a thing. This must mean something; he just wasn’t sure what it meant for the time being.

‘I’ll go ask Linkai about this.’

Chengcheng wasn’t in the mood to think (he never was), so asking his most trusted friend, Linkai seemed like a good option. Linkai was also the only one who knew about him meeting Minghao so talking to him was the safest option.

So, after washing his face, brushing his teeth, and changing away from his pajamas, Chengcheng quickly walked towards Linkai’s room. This was the first time in history that Fan Chengcheng didn’t run down towards the dining hall for breakfast like a mad bull first thing in the morning.

“Linkai, are you there?”

Chengcheng knocked on the older boy’s door twice before getting in. Everyone knew that Linkai hated being disrupted when he was busy doing his stuff. Chengcheng might be his best friend but that didn’t stop him from being scared of getting hit by a random spell right on his face.

“Yes, what do you want?”

Linkai sounded a bit snappy. Well, the older spirit was never a morning person so this kind of attitude was not new.

“I had a dream.”

The door in front of him instantly opened and before Chengcheng could react, Linkai had swiftly pulled him inside before closing the door once again at lightning speed.

“Why do weird stuff keep on happening to you these days?”

Don’t ask him, Chengcheng also didn’t know the answer. He suspected it was because he was always asleep during ceremonies and now all the Gods are hating on him.

“What did you dream about?”

Linkai asked as he moved his stuff around to make some space for Chengcheng to sleep. He didn’t remember the room being this messy last night so Linkai must have pulled an all-nighter trying out new spells or making some potion. No wonder the boy was so pissed off before.

“This,” Chengcheng pulled out the torn page of the memo pad containing the writings. Linkai stared at the piece of paper in confusion.

“Is this some kind of secret code?”

“I wouldn’t ask you if I know,” Chengcheng muttered lonely and thank god, Linkai didn’t catch it.

The shorter spirit observed the piece of paper for a few seconds more before he clapped his hands once in realization.

“I know what this is!” Linkai exclaimed in delight like he just won a lottery.

“I almost forgot since they looked a bit different and it had been some time since I actually used them but this is a wind channel code!”

Chengcheng had heard about wind channel code before but had never actually seen one or knew how it worked before. Linkai on the other hand, had once established a private wind channel with someone so of course the other spirit knew better than him.

“The royal wind channel has 15 digits. This one has 10 so it must be for a common wind channel,” Linkai explained. Chengcheng nodded his head in understanding. This must be what Minghao had talked about when he said that he would find a way.

So, not only was Minghao powerful enough to exert his power through a wind channel kilometers away, he was also powerful enough to enter a specific person’s dream to tell them information.

Minghao was terrifyingly skilled and now Chengcheng was questioning whether befriending him was the right choice or not. Dreamscaping was a very difficult skill to master and only very few people, called the dreamcatchers, were able to perform. Furthermore, these people were only able to do so after years of intense practice and oftentimes, even after all the hard work, the messages they were able to deliver were often too vague or unclear that there were many loopholes for misinterpretation.

If you were able to deliver such a clear message, you were either a God or someone who had received blessings from God. There were no other explanations.

“Did the Minghao boy send you this? How was he able to do so?”

“Don’t be shocked but I received this through a dream.”

Once again, Linkai looked terrified. Knowing such a powerful being existed in the enemy's kingdom was not a fact that can be slid easily.

“And I’m not supposed to tell anyone about this?”

“Yes.”

Linkai looked doubtful but Chengcheng also knew that he wasn’t someone who would betray his friend.

For now.

If the situation escalated further in the future then maybe Linkai would eventually betray him.

Chengcheng quickly left Linkai’s room not long after that, not wanting to aggravate the other spirit’s nervousness even further.

‘I want to try it out.’

Not even a day had passed and Chengcheng was already eager to ignore his sister’s warning and snooped around the common wind channel again.

‘Hope jiejie didn’t tighten the security around my room.’

She thankfully didn’t. Actually, Chengcheng wasn’t sure but judging from a three-layers-covered Chengcheng could easily sneak out of the palace, he was sure that there were no extra guards stationed around his bedroom.

Chengcheng reached his hidden spot in no time since today’s street wasn’t as busy as yesterday and there was a smaller chance of him bumping into a low-class wind spirit that could potentially recognize him.

‘0813774503’

Chengcheng recited the numbers repeatedly in his head as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Today’s weather was a lot colder than yesterday and so Chengcheng also didn’t sweat as much. It seemed that the southern wind God finally listened to the temple spirits and gifted them with a cold breeze this summer.

Minghao didn’t answer him immediately and Chengcheng almost thought that he had connected to the wrong channel until a familiar voice finally spoke after the fifth call.

“Hello? Is this Chengcheng?”

Chengcheng’s mood immediately brightened at the sound of the northern wind spirit’s voice. It had only been a day but Chengcheng had already missed the other spirit so much.

“Yes, it’s me, who else could it be?”

Chengcheng could sense the Minghao’s excitement through the channel the same way he had sensed the younger’s aggression yesterday.

Minghao really needed to learn how to control his power. He was lucky Chengcheng was the southern wind spirit he accidentally met, had it been anyone else, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t report him to his sister.

A war might start just like that.

Minghao began their conversation by telling him what he just had for breakfast today. The other wind spirit told him that he ate three big steamed buns and was so full right now that he couldn’t even focus on his study because all he wanted to do was just sleep.

“I didn’t even have breakfast.”

Chengcheng ate so much last night that he didn’t even feel that hungry in the morning. Well, that and also because he was more excited to come here than to eat breakfast. Chengcheng really never thought there would come a day where eating would be his second priority.

“Well then I’m going to keep you entertained so you won’t think about food!”

Then, Minghao began telling him more about his life. Once again, like yesterday, Minghao was telling him everything but also excluding out some important details like how he always mentioned about his siblings but never about their ability or what their positions were or when he mentioned that he was forced to sit through boring meetings but never mentioning what the meeting was about.

They were both being careful but neither had minded it for the slightest bit. They were here to have fun not to spy on each other. They were here to be friends, not to be enemies.

“I also practiced singing again! Do you want to hear them?”

Chengcheng contemplated for a little bit; which one was more important, the safety of his ears or the other wind spirit’s feelings?

Okay, his ears were more important besides, a little constructive criticism wouldn’t hurt right?

“You sounded bad Minghao.”

Okay, that didn’t sound like a constructive criticism but Chengcheng should let him know for his own good.

“Okay I realize that so as an apology, now I’m going to show you a different type of music from the human world!”

Chengcheng wasn’t used to playing around the wind channel so he was probably a bit behind in terms of musical development.

“Wait, I may not give you the best example so I’m just going to connect us to a wind channel in the human world.”

Connecting a channel? As in, connecting to a specific channel in the human world and not just picking up some random noises until a good one eventually appeared?

Chengcheng didn’t know that was possible. Wind patterns changed all the time in the human world and they couldn’t properly manipulate breeze like them so it was almost impossible to establish a specific wind channel in the human world.

Wind spirits could manipulate wind patterns in the human world to create one but most of the time they could only do that when they were near the ground themselves. It was really difficult to control them from where they were living in now, a place located so high above the ground.

But Minghao really never failed to amaze Chengcheng. Just a few minutes after he said that he would connect them to a human wind channel, they really got connected to one.

“Listen to this, I picked up this guy the other day and he sounded so good!”

Chengcheng didn’t know what amazed him more, the fact that he was connected to a specific wind channel from the human world or the new type of music he was hearing right now.

“He sounded good right? I heard this is a new type of music in the human world called rap! I think I’m gonna start practicing rap from now on.”

After that, Minghao started showing off the short rap lyrics he had written yesterday and for someone who had just practiced them for one day, Minghao did actually sound good. Of course, he wasn’t nowhere as good as the guy they just listened to but he sounded better rapping than he was singing.

“Argh, if only I wasn’t born a wind spirit, I would have pursued this career path already.”

Chengcheng could sense the other spirit’s frustration through the channel again. He really needed to stop doing this.

“Hey, Minghao, stop leaking off your power,” Chengcheng said. The young wind spirit needed to know for his own good also it felt uncomfortable being able to sense someone else’s emotion so clearly.

“Ah right, people always tell me to do so. That is the one thing I can’t really master.”

‘Probably because you are too strong.’

Minghao was probably already doing a good job at power controlling but his amount of power was probably too much to control at such a young age hence why it always leaked from time to time.

“Anyway-”

Then the same thing happened again. The two of them started chatting so much and time once again passed too quickly for both of their liking.

Before Chengcheng knew it, hours had passed and he needed to go back to the palace if he wanted to be safe.

“See you again, just contact me whenever, I will always be here!”

And with that, Minghao was gone and the emptiness Chengcheng felt before came back.

❁❀❁

“Fan Chengcheng.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Out of reflex, Chengcheng raised his head to look towards his left to the source of voice and immediately felt dumb when he realized that of course he wouldn’t see anyone there.

“Ask ahead, since when do you ask permission,” Chengcheng replied.

It had only been four days since they first knew each other but the other wind spirit probably already knew almost half his life since Chengcheng could be chatty when he wanted to be.

That was just how comfortable they were around each other.

“I wonder how you look like,” Minghao said and Chengcheng let out a laugh at how silly that question sounded.

“Why are you laughing, I’m sure you are also curious how I look.”

That was a good point. Chengcheng did wonder about how the other would look from time to time. Would the other have long hair or short hair? Would he have a straight nose bridge like himself or a cute button nose? Would he be short or tall?

“Of course, I am but why ponder on something that wouldn’t happen?”

That was the sad reality. They probably could never meet each other or it would take another 50 years before they would be considered mature enough for diplomatic meetings.

And by that time the older version of Fan Chengcheng and Huang Minghao would most likely not be friends anymore.

“I’m sure we can see each other soon,” Minghao said. He sounded hopeful but Chengcheng didn’t really like the idea of having false hope. Setting too high expectations never ended well.

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

Chengcheng’s heart raced slightly in anticipation of the answer. The other line went silent for a while before Minghao let out a low chuckle.

“Why do you sound so pessimistic? Are you not confident with how you look?” Chengcheng could almost hear the smirk in those words.

“You sound stupid, I bet you look stupid too.”

Minghao never held back when it came to insulting people. Who knew how many people he had offended in real life?

But Chengcheng wasn’t the type to get offended easily. Well, okay sometimes he took people’s words to heart when they were comparing him to his sister that he might have developed a slight inferiority complex but those words Minghao said just now didn’t make him feel anything bad at all.

“That’s how you think of me? I always think you look cute.”

Ziyi had once told him that getting back to people who said mean stuff with good stuff would be super effective in making the other person feel guilty.

Even though Minghao had sounded so horrible on their first meeting, Chengcheng actually found the other boy’s voice quite charming which was the main reason why he could stand talking to him for hours. By his logic, the owner of a cute voice must be cute too.

“W-what the hell?”

Chengcheng was just applying the ‘killing with kindness’ technique (which actually sounded so cringy in his brain). He didn’t expect the other would actually get um, flustered.

Now that made Chengcheng feel flustered too. He didn’t mean to flirt.

“I-I’m just saying I think you might look cute because you sounded c-cu-”

Stuttering felt weird and embarrassing. Chengcheng couldn’t even say the word cute for the second time, it felt so cringy. His singleness was showing and that was embarrassing.

“I-I need to go soon,” Chengcheng said in panic. He didn’t want to stop talking to Minghao but he also didn’t want to face any more embarrassment.

“W-wait before you go-”

Minghao said and Chengcheng immediately halted his movement. No matter how embarrassed he was, he could never leave the other wind spirit hanging.

Chengcheng waited and waited but no more sound came from the other side. What the hell?

“What is it?”

There was still no reply and Chengcheng was so convinced that the other really had left before he heard a low muttering from the other side.

“I…..ly…you…too.”

Chengcheng could barely hear what the other was saying. Now he was confused.

“I didn’t catch them, can you repeat that?”

Minghao let out a low shriek at the question. He sounded panicked, why was he so panicked?

“I-I don’t want to repeat it.”

“No what? You made me curious, say it again.”

“No!”

“Say it!”

“No!”

“Say-”

“Okay fine! I said I’m sorry I think you look cute too.”

Oh.

Well, good job Minghao for making him feel flustered. He shouldn’t have made the other boy repeat them to save him from embarrassment.

“W-well, you, you go find a way to prove that.”

That was the only thing Chengcheng could think of saying at the moment. He didn’t know what this feeling was but a small part of him was itching to get more of Minghao’s praise that he was good looking.

Shit, heart please shut up.

“I will find a way of course, I’m amazing like that!”

Chengcheng smiled at the reply. Meeting each other soon was once again just a wistful thinking but if it could happen, that would be so nice.

“Now you can go, bye.”

“Bye,bye cu-”

The line ended before Chengcheng could even finish his sentence. He just hoped that at least he wouldn’t be the only one sprouting a tomato face right now.

❁❀❁

“Cheng, you have been leaving the palace too many times this week. You will get caught sooner or later.”

Linkai told him while the two were hanging out in Chengcheng’s room. It was late at night and the two were too tired from the many meetings they had to attend that day. Chengcheng wasn’t actually in the mood of talking but he didn’t want to upset Linkai either.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Okay, maybe he did sound a bit bitchy. Chengcheng had spent the whole day attending three different meetings and because he was so busy today, he didn’t have time to sneak out and chat with Minghao.

Chengcheng hated to admit this but hanging out with Minghao had become his secret addiction.

“No, you are not and this is why I’m telling you this and also, you act differently when you don’t get the chance to go out.”

Linkai was right, he did get especially moody when he didn’t get to hangout with Minghao. Chengcheng was clever enough not to let it show around most of the wind spirits around him but the ones close to him, such as Linkai, must have noticed a thing or two.

And that would also mean that his jiejie probably also noticed a thing or two. Now that wasn’t a very good thing.

“Cheng, he is still a northerner and you are my friend but if he is affecting you so much, I have no choice but to rat you out,” Linkai warned. Chengcheng knew Linkai meant well but at that time, his feelings won over his rationality so Chengcheng just stormed out of the room before he would say something that he would regret.

‘I should just go to sleep.’

Yeah, just sleeping his problems off. That was probably the most Fan Chengcheng thing that he could do at the moment.

So, after a short trip to the kitchen and eating 10 pieces of leftover shumai and drinking a cup of hot tea, Fan Chengcheng finally readied himself to sleep.

Eating and sleeping, literally the two activities that Chengcheng loved the most in this world.

“FAN CHENGCHENG.”

Chengcheng was startled awake by a familiar loud scream.

‘I am not crazy, I am not crazy.’

Chengcheng chanted off the mantra like crazy. He was too young and handsome to be crazy but there was no other explanation on why he started hearing Minghao’s voice when he was supposed to be sleeping.

“DON’T IGNORE ME YOU ASSHOLE.”

‘If I ignore it enough, the hallucination will go away then I will not be crazy.”

Chengcheng didn’t want to wake up but the person shouting on him was so insistent on waking him up. At first, the mysterious figure was just shaking his shoulders and when that didn’t work, he began pulling on Chengcheng’s legs before eventually taking off his socks and started tickling the bottom of his legs.

How did this person or whatever creature doing these things to him know that he was ticklish?

It only took two tickles before Chengcheng started laughing uncontrollably, forcing him to (begrudgingly) wake up. What a persistent fellow.

“Argh! Finally.”

When Chengcheng opened his eyes, he immediately came face to face with an unknown boy and when something shocking happened, of course there was only one thing that he could: scream.

“ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Chengcheng pushed the other boy off him, sending him straight down to eat the ground below while Chengcheng himself rolled away as far as possible.

“WHO ARE YOU?” Chengcheng screamed while holding one of his hands up to shakily point at the boy.

“WHY DID YOU PUSH ME?”

“ANSWER MY QUESTION!”

“I ATE GRASS BECAUSE OF YOU!”

“STOP TALKING NONSENSE AND ANSWER MY QUESTION!”

Chengcheng felt tired from all the screaming and he could sense that the other boy was also feeling the same. They were both breathless as they stared into each other, Chengcheng could detect slight power seeping from the boy. This situation felt a bit familiar.

“I’m Minghao you idiot,” Minghao said while rubbing the dirt off his face. He also spat out some dirt that he had unfortunately eaten while being pushed to the ground.

“Minghao? Huang Minghao?”

There were many things that surprised him at once. First thing was why the hell did he wake up in the human realm (Yes, Chengcheng was sure this was the human realm because that was the only place where the sun shone from above). Did he really sleepwalk that bad he just fell into the ground below.

Or was this a dream?

Now that was the second shocking thing. Chengcheng wasn’t used to dreaming. He never had a dream before and now he was faced with two dreams only a week apart? That was terrifying. Dreaming this much might award him the title of dreamcatcher already.

If this really was a dream then how the hell was Minghao here? Did the other wind spirit really just enter his mind like that? So easily? Chengcheng’s room was enchanted to prevent this kind of thing, so did Minghao really just go through all that enchantment?

“Yes, I am Huang Minghao, the one you have been talking to all this time,” Minghao replied while rolling his eyes. The wind spirit’s face was already completely clean and he was currently holding a pouty expression on his face.

Chengcheng got to admit that Minghao actually looked pretty cute now that he wasn’t all covered in dirt.

Unlike most of the southern wind spirits whose hair are kept long and were mostly black in colour, Minghao had short, shoulder length blond hair that was half tied to keep most of the hair away from his face.

This was actually Chengcheng’s first time seeing such short hair length on someone that was not a little kid. It really was a different culture, the way the northern spirits dressed was in a way more ‘humanised’ than the southern wind spirits. Chengcheng always thought that having short hair would be more convenient especially when he needed to take a dump but he also didn’t want to get stared at everywhere he walked so short hair really wasn’t an option.

He had warm honey coloured eyes that Chengcheng thought was one of the most beautiful things that he had ever seen in his life (don’t let his jiejie hear this, she will surely murder him.)

Not to mention, Minghao also had a cute little mole near his eyes and plump lips that Chengcheng wanted to- no it was too early for that.

“How did you enter my head through a dream?”

Huang Minghao was so beautiful and in Chengcheng’s opinion, was a very deceiving fact.

In that royal blue hanfu that slowly transitioned to white around the limbs area, Huang Minghao looked like such an elegant fragile prince that could be easily broken by the slightest touch.

But the actual Minghao was none of that. The real Minghao was a playful, smart, and immensely powerful spirit that could probably break anything with a single touch.

“I don’t know too, actually. I fell asleep just thinking it will be nice if I can hangout with Chengcheng then the next thing I know I am on this field and you were there too.”

It was almost terrifying how there was literally no limit to what Minghao could do. Controlling winds from far away? Easily done. Entering someone else’s dream? Easily done. What would be next, transporting himself to the middle of Zephyr palace? Chengcheng didn’t want to give the other spirit ideas.

“You shouldn’t drag people into your dream like this.”

Had things happened outside of Zephyr palace, then Chengcheng could just ignore it. Nobody would be able to detect Minghao’s miniscule power seeping outside of the palace in the common wind channel where they usually communicated.

But going through the strong enchantment of Zephyr palace and also Chengcheng’s private bedroom’s enchantment must have required a lot of power and this time, it wouldn’t be too miniscule to be ignored.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” Minghao didn’t sound sorry at all, “don’t be so stuck up, you will be bald soon.”

“I’m being serious,” Chengcheng wasn’t used to being on the worrying side (he tends to be so carefree that people worry about him) and serious but being both of them seemed proper at the moment.

“Okay fine, do you want to wake up now then? I actually don’t know how to send you back but I can figure it out,” Minghao said casually and just like what he said, five minutes later, he already figured out how to go back.

“Don’t leave me hanging again tomorrow okay?” Minghao said as the world around them began to morph together into one blurry picture. Chengcheng could barely see the other wind spirit’s face anymore.

“I’m busy unlike you brat,” Chengcheng said with a smirk and before Minghao could reply, everything had already turned black. The connection had ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 在哪里 在哪里见过你~


	3. The more you avoid, the more you can't give up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Chengcheng his constant effort to reach out for the other boy is normal. To him, experiencing a Minghao withdrawal was normal.
> 
> To everyone around him, he is acting nowhere near normal and who knows how long he actually has before he would eventually get caught?

Chengcheng had ended up not being able to fall back to sleep after waking up at 3am when his connection with Minghao ended.

He must have looked so much like shit because everyone he encountered as he walked towards the dining hall was giving him a weird look. Some of them even had the audacity to scoff but Chengcheng didn’t bother getting angry at them, he was used to being seen as a big joke anyway.

“You look like shit,” Linkai told him when he took in Chengcheng’s appearance as said wind spirit took the spot next to him. With panda eyes from lack of sleep and unbrushed, tangled up long hair, Chengcheng was sure that he looked hideous.

“Did you not sleep last night?” He did but he was abruptly woken up after his connection with Minghao through their dream was disconnected and couldn’t get back to sleep after.

That was the full story, but Linkai shouldn’t know that so he just settled with a low grunt as he chewed on a yam filled steamed bun.

“Minghao came again?”

Chengcheng almost choked at the question. He didn’t know how to respond to that question.

“Later,” Chengcheng settled for that instead. Curse Linkai for being a walking lie detector.

Linkai really did take his words seriously. Chengcheng tried to slow down his eating face in the hope that the older wind spirit would eventually get bored of waiting for him and left and hopefully forgot about the whole ordeal.

But no, Linkai was so persistent as he sat there waiting for Chengcheng to finish his breakfast even after almost half an hour passed and Chengcheng was yet to be done.

“You are not going anywhere,” Linkai warned and Chengcheng eventually gave up stalling. After finishing one last bite of the still steaming glutinous rice ball, Chengcheng eventually stood up and walked away from the dining hall with Linkai closely following behind him.

The two were headed towards Linkai’s room where the anti-eavesdropping barrier was the strongest so Chengcheng would be assured that no one else would be hearing what he and Linkai were going to talk about.

“Speak,” Linkai commanded once they were both settled comfortably inside. The room was much cleaner today, no more books scattered on the ground, no more boiling of questionable bad smelling things in the room and no more leftover herbs overflowing the trash bin.

“Yes, he came to my dream last night.”

Chengcheng just hoped that Linkai wouldn’t rat him out yet. It had only been a week; he didn’t want things to escalate so fast.

“He could bypass both the palace’s and your room’s security unnoticed?”

Linkai looked terrified as expected. Casting a strong protective barrier around a big area such as the entire Zephyr Palace was a difficult thing but usually this barrier caster by his sister did a good job in filtering out any unwanted visitor.

This was why usually each wind spirit living in the castle ground would set up another protective barrier in this room to ensure maximum security.

It was not every day that a fifteen-year-old could pass through both undetected.

“Are you sure I cannot say anything?”

Chengcheng was sure but he couldn’t directly voice it out without sounding like a traitor. Linkai wouldn’t understand but Chengcheng was so sure that Minghao really meant no harm at all.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Linkai let out a long sigh. Both of them weren’t in the mood to argue with each other.

“Don’t see him today. It’s dangerous,” Linkai said one last time before Chengcheng left the room. There was a weird implication in his voice as Linkai said those words but Chengcheng decided to just ignore it. The older wind spirit was probably just being cautious.

Chengcheng really shouldn’t have ignored it.

Having succeeded in sneaking out many times had made Chengcheng too arrogant. He didn’t even get to take a step out of the palace when five guards appeared out of nowhere, surrounding him.

“What did I tell you about snooping around?”

Asking him in a cold voice and walking towards him in dignified steps was none other than Fan Bingbing herself. Unlike the other day on the dinner table, this time she was exerting such a strong aggression that Chengcheng almost cowered in fear had it not been for the fact that he knew she wouldn’t hurt him because she loved him too much.

Bingbing was dressed in a golden hanfu with cherry blossom patterns around the edges. Her hair was styled up with braids around the area where the hair is folded up. Two long strands of hair were left to fall gracefully on the left and right side of her neck, all the way down until just below her breast. 

“Jiejie,” Chengcheng muttered. He still had those stupid three layers of covering up, still trying to hide himself despite being obviously caught.

“You are not going anywhere today,” Bingbing said in a cold voice. She raised one of her hands and flicked it down, a sign for the guards to take hold of Chengcheng.

Before he knew it, two of the guards were holding on tightly onto Chengcheng, one of them taking hold of his left arm and the other was holding his left.

“Are you going to lock me up?”

Chengcheng was asking the obvious. Of course, she would lock him up, why else would the two guards be holding him otherwise.

These two guards were weaker than him. If Chengcheng wanted to, he could easily overpower the two but his sister was also there and Chengcheng wasn’t that confident about beating her.

Bingbing didn’t reply to him but her action of walking away towards the direction of the punishment room pretty much summed her answer.

The punishment room wasn’t something horrible like a torture chamber or anything. It looked almost similar to a normal bedroom, with a wardrobe, a simple wooden bed and a table for doing work except for the fact that there was heightened security around the room.

There were far more guards stationed around there and the room enchantment was particularly strong there. Once inside, it was almost impossible to get any message across. Chengcheng didn’t know if Minghao could break through this one too but it seemed unlikely.

“You are staying here for a week and after that I am going to monitor you too all the time,” Bingbing said before she left and the door was locked. 

Chengcheng didn’t understand why him going around the common wind channel was such a big deal. Would it really taint the Fan family image so much had he been caught? Chengcheng doubted it since everyone always expected him to do something stupid anyway.

Chengcheng glanced at the table and sure enough there were already stacks of books and documents on the table. He really was forced to be productive.

Well, Chengcheng had been slacking a whole week so might as well get some work done while he couldn’t do anything else.

(He didn’t actually end up finishing much work since Chengcheng found out that he had the ability to sleep for a very, very long time.)

❁❀❁

Chengcheng didn’t have any encounter with Minghao the whole week. His sister must have enchanted the room so much that even the ever so powerful Minghao couldn’t break in.

Not gonna lie, Chengcheng kind of missed talking with the other boy. They were far apart and any kind of gossiping they did wouldn’t affect each other’s life since they didn’t know the person concerned and would therefore couldn’t snitch on them.

“Bro, you are finally out,” Linkai gave him a hug as they finally saw each other for the first time in a week. A week was not a long time but Chengcheng was basically the only one fun around to entertain Linkai so not seeing each other for a week must have felt like a really long time.

“How was a week without me? Was Yanjun-ge and his cold jokes entertaining enough?”

Linkai groaned at the mention of the older wind spirit. Yanjun must have bothered him so much.

“Don’t even mention him,” Chengcheng let out a loud hearty laugh at that. It had been a while since he was able to do that.

“Hey, I need to ask you something,” Chengcheng said as he and Linkai took a walk around the garden before settling down on one of the log benches located under a big pine tree. He figured that they might need some shade on this particularly hot day.

“Go ahead,” Linkai sadi lazily. The older wind spirit was already closing his eyes and his body was already halfway through completely sliding off the bench.

“Did something-”

“FAN CHENGCHENG!”

Chengcheng didn’t even get to finish his sentence when a sudden loud noise cut him off, even Linkai who was almost asleep was immediately startled awake. Chengcheng could hear a low ‘fuck’ coming from the spirit on his left.

“What happened, are you okay? Why did they lock you up?”

In a matter of seconds, You Zhangjing was already in front of him, both of his hands were holding Chengcheng’s face, turning it up from left to right to check for injuries. Of course, he would have no injury, Zhangjing was just a little over dramatic.

Standing just behind the brown-haired wind spirit was Lin Yanjun. His expression was as calm as ever but if you looked closer, there was slight jealousy in the way he stared at Zhangjing and Chengcheng. What a possessive man.

“Of course, I’m okay.”

Chengcheng tried to pry Zhangjing’s hands off him but failed miserably. The older wouldn’t be truly satisfied until he could make sure of the fact himself.

“I’m so worried bad things have been happening lately,” Zhangjing muttered before finally letting go of Chengcheng.

Bad thing? What kind of bad thing?

“What happened while I was gone?” Chengcheng asked. Zhangjing and Yanjun turned to look at each other briefly before turning back to him, both wearing a grim look on their face.

“Some wind spirits got attacked while they were using the common wind channel, some were injured so gravely that they hadn’t woken up till today,” Zhangjing said, trying to maintain a solemn look on his face but judging from his trembling hands, he was definitely affected badly by the incident. Yanjun was immediately by the smaller spirit’s side to rub a comforting hand on his back.

“And I- I am not supposed to tell this to anyone but since you are also part of the inner circle, I think it is safe to tell you.”

The inner circle Zhangjing was talking about refers to the highest governing body in the southern wind spirit realm. It consisted of the members of the four most powerful families amongst the nine families living in Zephyr palace which were the Fans, the Wangs, the Lins and the Yous.

Chengcheng, Yanjun, Zhangjing, Linkai and Ziyi were all part of this inner circle hench why the five of them were so close. Ziyi, Zhangjing and Yanjun were all about 300-400 years old, much older than both Linkai and Chengcheng whose age were still in the two digits so amongst the five, Chengcheng and Linkai were the closest to each other.

“Three days ago, I had a dream, just like the one I had years ago during our greatest victory.”

Ah, that made sense. Dreams were always a sensitive topic since they were very rare and often contained specific meanings. Chengcheng used to not understand the sentiment but now that he had started sharing dreams with Minghao, he finally understood why people liked to keep their dreams to themselves or just to a few people.

“In that dream I saw a boy, he was standing in a battlefield with a bloodied broken sword surrounded by the corpse of many wind spirits-”

That was a pretty terrifying dream. Chengcheng felt kind of bad that Zhangjing had to see such horror when he was just trying to get some rest.

“Though he was almost completely covered by blood, I could still clearly see some of his features. He was wearing a blue hanfu that turned white around the limbs area-”

Wait, that description sounded familiar.

“He had a messy, shoulder length blond hair and the most striking part I remember was the murderous glint in his light brown eyes. Those eyes, they were so full of resentment I could almost feel it piercing into my soul.”

Oh my god. Chengcheng wasn’t too sure but the boy that Zhangjing described just now sounded so much like Minghao, the Huang Minghao that he knew.

Maybe Chengcheng was overthinking, there could be many other northern wind spirits out there with shoulder length blond hair, brown eyes, and blue hanfu.

But there could only be one wind spirit that matched the description that also possessed such ungodly strength, they could beat so many wind spirits at once.

“I wasn’t sure what this dream meant since the northern wind spirits had been quiet for some time but we can’t also be too sure that they weren’t planning anything.”

Zhangjing was shaking as he finished his explanation. If before Yanjun was only rubbing a comforting hand on the older’s back, now he had moved to fully embrace his fiancé. The PDA was kinda gross but at that moment, it was necessary.

“A-anyway, what is Nongnong up to these days? Why isn’t he with you today?”

Chengcheng tried to divert the conversation topic from the horrible dream to something that Zhangjing enjoyed talking about which was Linong.

Chen Linong was Yanjun’s half-brother who was unofficially adopted by both Yanjun and Zhangjing.

Linong and Yanjun shared the same father but came from different mothers. The younger wind spirit, well, not really a wind spirit since Linong’s mother was a human.

One time during a bad storm, Yanjun’s father who at that time was coming back from an expenditure to the western realm, had been blown away by the wind and landed at a place that the human world called Taiwan.

There, he met a beautiful woman and together, the two had a son which they had named Linong. Mr. Lin didn’t return to the southern realm until about five years later and his return had been a great shock to everyone.

They had thought that the old man died years ago during the storm, they even had a funeral ceremony for him already. The guard who saw him returning for the first time with a little boy had thought that he was seeing a ghost.

The old man was given a warm welcome, the boy he came with wasn’t.

Everyone saw him as a disgrace, the women in the palace called his mom a wicked fox who used magic to seduce Mr. Lin. They knew that the woman was a human but such gossip was still spread to save Mrs. Lin’s face, what would people say when they found out her husband was attracted to another woman?

In conclusion, Linong was treated badly by the elders around him. Not to mention, being a half human, his magic development was slower compared to everyone else so he was also bullied a lot by his peers except Linkai and Chengcheng.

They became sort of a trio, always going everywhere together in order to prevent Linong from getting bullied.

Linong was also lucky that though Mrs. Lin hated his whole being with passion, Yanjun didn’t hate him at all. In fact, the older doted on him a lot, being his mental support and often showering him with gifts.

Ziyi and Zhangjing, being Yanjun’s friends and just angels by default, also love to dote on the younger. Zhangjing would often cook for him and Ziyi, being one of the best fighters, would often accompany Linong in practices.

And so, though Linong’s life started up pretty roughly, he soon found his own little home in the southern realm.

“Nongnong is with Ziyi.”

Chengcheng must have spoken wrong since Zhangjing’s eyes seemed to darken as Linong was mentioned.

“They are checking up the site where some spirits got attacked to make sure that no one was around to use them. In fact, all common wind channels were currently closed due to the incident until the next few days.”

Zhangjing had always been so protective of Linong. Chengcheng couldn’t count the amount of times the older had volunteered either himself or Yanjun so Linong didn’t have to join on missions.

He shouldn’t be so worried, Ziyi was with him, almost every mission went well if Ziyi was involved.

‘Wait, all of them are closed?’

Oh no, this meant that Chengcheng couldn’t contact Minghao and he desperately needed to talk to him now. He needed to tell him about Zhangjing’s dream.

Chengcheng was almost a hundred percent sure that the person Zhangjing saw in his dream was Minghao or a crazy version of himself. He needed to prevent this from happening and the first step was probably to give Minghao a precaution.

Now, Chengcheng wouldn’t be that desperate to try and prevent Minghao from going completely crazy if he was so sure that the other wind spirit was perfectly sane. Chengcheng wasn’t sure if Minghao was actually perfectly sane.

For all they know, he could be the one doing all these attacks on the wind spirit and if his sister or any other member of the Zephyr palace found out, then a war might start and Zhangjing’s dream might come true. That shouldn’t happen.

‘I hope he contacts me soon.’

The wind channel wasn’t their only way of communicating. Now that Chengcheng was out of the punishment room where the protective barrier wasn’t too strong, maybe Minghao could finally enter his dream again.

“Okay, enough depressing stuff, let’s just eat lunch. I need to talk to Ruibin soon,” Linkai said before standing up and began walking towards the dining hall. The rest of them just followed suit.

Much to Zhangjing’s happiness, Linong and Ziyi made it back just in time when dinner was served.

Chengcheng could see how Zhangjing’s mood was immediately lifted by 100% upon seeing his baby entering the dining room with a wide smile. Chengcheng wished he could share the happiness but right now he was just getting a bit more worried about his friend from the other side.

After lunch, all of them had no mission or schedules so in this rare time when all of them were free, the five of them decided to play some musical instruments together.

Playing together with his friends were fun but Chengcheng still couldn’t get his mind off Minghao whose image slowly transformed from being a cheery boy that looked at him cheerfully to a psychotic boy who wanted nothing but murder.

Chengcheng really hoped that Minghao somehow found a way to slip into his dream so he could finally get some inner peace.

❁❀❁

Minghao didn’t end up slipping into his dream that night and also for the following nights until a whole month had passed.

When the common wind channel was finally opened again, Chengcheng immediately rushed himself to his usual secret ‘meeting up’ place with Minghao.

He tried calling up the other boy but was met with nothing. No reply ever came from the other side even as Chengcheng chanted up the series of numbers more than a hundred times.

He tried again the next day but was once again met with the same result. Nothing, literally nothing, not a single sign that there was a presence on the other side.

This continued for another week before Chengcheng finally gave up. If Minghao didn’t want to see him then he didn’t have any choice but to comply.

It was upsetting of course, not being able to see someone you connect with so well. He must have been so obvious about it that even the people around him began noticing his lack of enthusiasm each day.

Only Linkai knew why he was like that and Chengcheng really appreciated his effort but at this point, the only way he could go back to his usual self was probably being able to get in contact with the northern wind spirit.

Chengcheng hated being dramatic but talking to Minghao was like an addiction and now he was going through the withdrawal phase.

‘Damn you for disappearing on me.’

Chengcheng cursed before he pulled his blanket all the way up to his face and tried to fall asleep. Surprisingly, he managed to fall asleep in no time.

And when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his bedroom but rather in a grassland where the sun was above him instead of around him.

This was the same place he had met Minghao in the dream for the first time.

‘Is he here?’

Chengcheng had to walk around for a bit before he finally spotted the figure he had been missing so much for the past few weeks.

There, sitting down with his back facing Chengcheng on a big boulder with the same blue-colored hanfu as the one he wore the first time was Minghao. His blond hair, that Chengcheng noticed was slightly longer than before, was untied and was lightly swayed by the gentle breeze around him.

“Minghao?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor boy just wanna hang out T^T


	4. It is your warmth, holding me till now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In power there is security and in power there is bound to be chaos.
> 
> This, Chengcheng knew and understood very well. He always knew but being powerful enough but not too powerful at the same time, he never thought it was his problem.
> 
> Until it actually did.

“Minghao?”

Chengcheng called the other wind spirit carefully. Minghao immediately stiffened at the sound of his name and for the next few minutes, the two of them just stayed unmoving in their respective position, Minghao with his back facing Chengcheng and Chengcheng still at about a distance of five meters away from him.

It was almost as if they couldn’t believe that they were finally meeting each other and didn’t want to face the reality in case it wasn’t true.

“Is that really you?”

Minghao said without turning around. He tried to sound neutral, but there was a massive hint of excitement in his voice.

“Come here and confirm it yourself.”

At Chengcheng’s words, Minghao immediately went off the boulder and ran to him at full speed, tackling Chengcheng in a bone crushing hug that sent the both of them onto the ground below.

“I missed you so fucking much.”

Minghao’s sobs were muffled as he buried himself in Chengcheng's clothing. Chengcheng could feel himself tearing up too and soon the two of them were just a crying mess.

Meeting each other was supposed to be a joyous occasion, Chengcheng didn’t know why they were crying right now. Maybe that was just how much they missed each other.

“Are you done crying?”

Minghao looked up from where his head was previously buried on Chengcheng’s shoulder to stare down at the wind spirit below him.

“I should be asking you the same.”

Minnghao’s eyes and nose were red and there were some leftover snots all over his face (Chengcheng was sure there were some on his clothes too) but he realized that he himself probably didn’t look any better.

“Let’s go sit on that rock.”

Minghao stood up and offered a hand to Chengcheng to help him stand up. Once they were both fully standing, Chengcheng noticed that over the course of one month, Minghao had actually grown a few centimeters. The power of puberty really was no joke.

Their hands were still entangled as they walked towards the rock and were still in that state even after the two of them were already fully seated on the rock. If Minghao wasn’t letting go then why should Chengcheng do the same?

“I thought you were ignoring me,” Minghao said sadly. His expression was neutral as he spoke but his seeping power told Chengcheng otherwise.

“I was locked up for a week then the common wind channel was closed for a few days after I was out. When I tried to reach out to you after that, you didn’t respond,” Chengcheng explained and suddenly the seeping power was gone. It came back not long after but this time it had a different kind of feeling to it, it was something akin to terror.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Chengcheng didn’t want to ask this question but judging from how Minghao’s power started leaking more as he spoke, Chengcheng knew that he was headed towards the right track. He must continue.

“A month ago, there was an incident where several wind spirits got attacked while they were using the common wind channel by an unknown being-”

Chengcheng probably didn’t even need to finish his sentence. Judging from how much power was seeping from the younger wind spirit, the answer was pretty much obvious.

“Was it you?”

Minghao tried to pull his hand away but Chengcheng gripped them strongly. He was not escaping this.

“Do you hate me?”

He always did this, Minghao didn’t like answering things directly. Ambiguity was more of his thing.

“I don’t. I will never but you need to be careful.”

Chengcheng could feel his cheeks heating up as he said the second sentence. He wasn’t confessing or anything but somehow it felt equally as embarrassing.

“O-one of my seniors told me something kind of terrible the other day,” Chengcheng was so flustered that he stuttered. Fuck that.

“What is it?” In contrast to Chengcheng, Minghao didn’t seem to notice either the implication (it doesn’t exist Chengcheng was just single) behind what he just said or the other’s slight flustered expression.

“He saw you in his dream and in that dream, you were going completely crazy.”

“I am not crazy.”

All of a sudden, Chengcheng couldn’t sense Minghao’s power seeping anymore. It seemed that the boy was trying so hard to control his power so he didn’t seem crazy like what Chengcheng had told him.

“Is this what happened when you attack those people?”

Minghao stiffened slightly at the accusation and this time too, Chengcheng couldn’t sense any power seep from him. He really was trying so hard.

“I didn’t mean to do it, okay? I was just frustrated and disappointed, I never intended for it to be picked up by the channel and hurt your people.”

Now, that was a terrifying fact. So, Minghao’s attack wasn’t even intentional. It was a pure coincidence.

“Minghao you should be careful, in that dream, you killed everyone. My senior’s dream came true before but this one shouldn’t,” Chengcheng finished. The other wind spirit didn’t respond immediately.

“Killing everyone was just kind of horrible to you?” Chengcheng sighed, there he went avoiding the topic once again.

“That wasn’t the point, you need to be careful.”

“I will, I will now can you please go back to Fun Chengcheng. I hate naggy and boring-”

Before Minghao even got to finish his sentence, Chengcheng had already pushed the other boy off the boulder and onto the small pond in front of the boulder. Minghao said he wanted Fun Chengcheng, right? Now he was getting it.

“THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT,” Minghao screamed once he was out of the pond, he was about to grab Chengcheng’s legs to drag him in too but the other boy was quicker, he already hopped off the stone and ran the opposite direction.

“COME BACK HERE YOU ASSHOLE, WAIT TILL I CATCH YOU.”

❁❀❁

“Did he come to you last night?” Linkai asked. The question almost seemed rhetorical. Chengcheng’s mood was obviously better than yesterday and there could only be one thing that could lift his mood like that these days.

“I don’t like the idea of him but happy you is a good thing I guess.”

Chengcheng could understand why Linkai wasn’t happy about the fact. Minghao was still someone from the enemy side.

“What do you think the meeting will be about today?” Chengcheng asked, trying to divert the topic away from the northern wind spirit.

“I’m not sure but it must be something urgent since this meeting came with such a short notice.”

The meeting really did come on such a short notice. In Chengcheng’s opinion, this meeting was more like an emergency gathering since everyone was only notified about it during breakfast this morning.

Chengcheng remembered that he was only halfway through his second boiled yam when Wang Ziyi had barged into the dining room with panic written all over his face. All eyes were immediately on him as he stood in the middle of the dining room clearing his throat, preparing himself to make an announcement.

“All members of the inner circle please make your way to the meeting room after you finish your breakfast to have a meeting. I am very sorry for the sudden notice but something important just came up.”

As quickly as he came, Ziyi left the dining hall. He still had on that uneased expression as he left the room. Ziyi was always the calm one amongst all of them, Chengcheng wondered what had broken through that shield of his.

“My brother rarely feels panicked, I wonder what happened,” Linkai muttered, worry visible in his face.

Chengcheng, like everyone else, was also worried but probably for all the wrong reasons. He was worried not about the panicked look on Ziyi’s face but about the reason why he looked panicked.

He was scared that it was because they found out about Minghao.

“Hey, don’t be too panicked, it doesn’t suit you,” Chengcheng elbowed Linkai jokingly and unfortunately had used too much force that the other wind spirit fell to the ground.

“HEY, WHAT WAS THAT?” Linkai half-screamed at Chengcheng from the ground. His left hand was holding his right one whose palm was slightly grazed by the rock below.

“Didn’t mean it,” Chengcheng replied half-heartedly while holding both of his arms up in fake surrender. Linkai just glared at him.

“I am hurt.”

“And what can I do about it?”

That was a fair point, the most Chengcheng could do was bring the other wind spirit to the medical wing.

“Help me about you- huh?”

Linkai, who was lifting up his left hand for Chengcheng to take and help him stand up suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“What happened?”

One moment ago, Linkai was whining about the small wound on his hand and now he was super quiet. Maybe his hand wasn’t the only thing that got damaged from the fall.

“The wound- the wound is gone,” Linkai shakily exclaimed and in that moment, Chengcheng finally registered the slight pain he began feeling in his right hand.

Chengcheng quickly pulled his right sleeve away and true enough, there, in the same spot Linkai was injured before was a scar on his right hand.

“Bro,” Chengcheng said as he stared at his hand in both awe and fear, “your scar is now my scar.”

Linkai’s eyes immediately widened. He quickly stood up and within seconds was already on Chengcheng’s right, staring at the younger’s palm with amazement.

“I didn’t know you can do this?” Linkai said. Well, Chengcheng also didn’t know that he had this kind of ability. When did he ever learn it?

“I also don’t know?” They both stared at each other in confusion.

“We need to tell Bingbing-jie about this,” Linkai said. He was about to drag Chengcheng away but the younger was quicker. Using his unwounded hand, Chengcheng quickly grabbed a hold of Linkai’s hand, stopping the older.

“Keep this a secret.”

Linkai’s expression quickly turned from confusion to annoyance as he heard the sentence.

“Not this again. I am a lie detector not a safebox, there is only so much I can keep in.”

Linkai tried to tug his hand away from Chengcheng but the younger wouldn’t budge. So, after a few more tugging and resisting, Linkai finally gave up trying to win against Chengcheng. He was never good at physical fights anyway.

“Fine. This is the last time.”

Linkai tugged his hand away again and Chengcheng finally let him. The older wind spirit didn’t even wait for him as he began walking away towards the meeting room.

The two of them arrived just in time before the emergency meeting started. All the familiar faces were already seated in their respective position with their family in the room.

Zhangjing gave the two a slight wave before turning his attention back to Ziyi who was standing in the middle of the room. Much to Chengcheng's surprise, Linong was also present in the room. The half spirit, despite being a Lin, was usually excluded from any sort of royal gatherings since a lot of the spirits still hold a prejudice against him.

So, the meeting today must have something to do with both Linong and Ziyi. The only recent thing the two did was the expedition to the common wind channel.

This couldn’t mean well.

“Some of you might have guessed the reason why we are all gathered here,” Ziyi began and the low chattering in the room immediately vanished. All attention was now focused on the speaking man alone.

“This morning, we got an update on the attack that happened a month ago.”

A month ago. Ziyi was talking about the attack on some wind spirits near the common wind channel. Shit.

“After some spending time tracing, my partner, Linong here, had found out that the attacker wasn’t someone from this realm.”

Low murmur began to sound again in the room. Even Linkai was nudging him from the side, the older might already sense which direction this conversation is going.

“And who is it?”

Fan Bingbing asked, voice full of authority. The murmurs died down once again and all attention was returned back to Ziyi.

“We aren’t sure but it apparently came from a royal wind channel up in the north. Royal channels weren’t usually connected to common channels so this person might have established connection to our common wind channel some time prior to the attack.”

Shit. Chengcheng knew it, they found out about Minghao. They might soon also find out that Chengcheng was the one setting up that connection.

“Are they waging a war with us?”

“Those northern bastards are they mocking us?”

“We should settle it with them.”

Most southern wind spirits hated the northern wind spirits, especially royals who had been around for a very long time. To them, this was just the perfect excuse to wage a war.

“Do we clearly know who did it?” Bingbing asked, she sounded solemn but the power seeping out of her told Chengcheng otherwise.

Chengcheng was nervous as he waited for Ziyi’s answer but fortunately the older wind spirit shook his head.

“We are not sure. As far as we know, no one in the Northern realm is supposed to be strong. Cai Xukun, the husband of Zhu Zhengting from the Huang family, was supposedly the most talented amongst all of them but even he wouldn’t be able to do this,”

Chengcheng recalled Minghao mentioning Cai Xukun a few times before. According to the younger, his brother was a very powerful wind spirit relative to his age, there was even suspicion that he was a descendant of the God but nothing was really confirmed.

This Cai Xukun was strong but based on what Ziyi just said, Minghao was even stronger than him.

Then how the hell did they not suspect him? Not that Chengcheng wanted them to suspect him but the whole thing was weird.

Linkai also sounded confused when he mentioned about the other boy for the first but at that time Chengcheng just thought that Linkai was being stupid but it turned out that nobody actually knew about the young spirit’s existence.

The whole room situation became tense. Nobody said a thing but Chengcheng was sure that there was only one thing going through their mind at the moment; The northern realm was hiding something, or someone, and that something or someone was very powerful.

“Wang Ziyi, please conduct further investigation on this,” Bingbing finally spoke, taking control of the situation. Ziyi automatically nodded at the request.

What his sister was about to say next was something that Chengcheng had feared would happen.

“From now on, we will begin the training program again. If we must, we will wage a war.”

❁❀❁

Chengcheng hated the training program for so many reasons. One, he was lazy and the last thing he ever wanted to do in his seventeenth year of living was to practice from 6am and 6pm. Second reason, still connected to being lazy, he hated waking up in the morning and hated having to rush his breakfast so he wouldn’t be late to practice,

And lastly, he didn’t want to fight Minghao because he would lose and he just didn’t want to fight the other wind spirit in general.

“Bro,” Chengcheng began as he and Linkai were lying side by side on the ground, their whole body covered in sweat and their hanfu half opened around the chest area to cool themselves. Their hair was strewn all over the ground and were mixing up with the dirt but the two couldn’t care less at the moment.

In short, they looked awful.

“What?” Linkai answered breathlessly. They had finished all the water in their respective bottles and were too lazy to get up and refill it. Ingesting cool air will do for now.

“Help me sneak out tomorrow.”

“No.”

Linkai’s answer came immediately. Chengcheng expected this much but he wasn’t going to give up. Knowing that Linkai was too lazy to get up, his plan was to keep on nudging the other boy until he finally agreed.

“Come on, I’m big and handsome. With the increased security, it will be hard to not notice me.”

Linkai gave him a disgusted expression before letting out another no. Well, it seemed that Chengcheng might have to keep nudging.

“Stop doing that.”

Linkai finally showed signs of annoyance. Good, he just needed to keep going.

“Fine, fine, I will try my best.”

Turns out, Linkai’s patience wasn’t that amazing. Chengcheng had initially expected way more nudgings before the older finally agreed.

It took them another ten minutes of just lying down on the dirty ground before they finally decided that yeap the dirt was gross and they shouldn’t be lying on them.

Chengcheng took a long shower, the dirt clinging on to his hair as more difficult to remove than he had thought. After 30 minutes of constant rubbing, he finally felt clean enough to step out of the bathroom.

“What do we have for dinner tonight?”

Chengcheng asked Linkai who coincidentally also finished his shower around the same time as him. The older wind spirit was currently in the middle of rubbing his hair with a towel to dry them a little.

“Pork rib soup.”

Chengcheng’s mouth immediately watered at the mention of the food. It seemed that his mouth wasn’t the only one excited at the thought of food, Chengcheng’s belly also started growling like crazy the whole way to the dining room.

Pretty sure at least five people were staring at him but Chengcheng was used to being stared at so he didn’t bother with them.

Chengcheng ate to his heart content that night and after his fifth bowl, he let out the loudest burp that the few heads left in the dining hall immediately turned to him.

“You are embarrassing,” Linkai said as he ate his third serving of the soup. Just wait, soon enough, he would let out the same loud burp.

Linkia did burp but it wasn’t too loud much to Chengcheng’s disappointment.

Chengcheng went to sleep early that night and just like any other day, he had a dreamless sleep. Minghao never came to his dream again, it seemed that the younger wind spirit listened to his advice well. Chengcheng felt kind of proud.

Tomorrow was a Saturday which meant break day from practice. Though it was a break day, they would still be closely monitored. The higher ups had always been a little too paranoid during times of war preparation.

“Are you sure we are doing this?”

Linkai glanced around nervously as Chengcheng was putting on his last layer of covering.

“Yes, we are.”

The two of them encountered three guards along the way but thanks to Chengcheng’s experience of avoiding people and Linkai’s mastery in hiding his presence, they successfully managed to make it through the back gate.

“I will not help you sneak in, do that yourself.”

With that, Linkai left and Chengcheng quickly made his way to his usual spot in the groove.

“Hey!” The familiar voice greeted Chengcheng not long after they got connected.

“You didn’t come for so long, where were you all this time? Are you studying? No way.”

They couldn’t live a day without insulting each other it seemed.

“I did study, I am not an idiot like you.”

Chengcheng could hear the other wind spirit scoffed at the statement. Well, he actually didn’t know if reading a scroll for five minutes was considered studying but Minghao didn’t know that.

“Minghao,” Chengcheng called the other boy, “why does no one know about you?”

This one particular fact had been bugging him for some time. Different realms could hide things like weapons or ancient magic but the members of royal families were so rarely hidden. Back when the whole Linong thing happened, everyone in all four wind realms had learned about it in three days.

How did Minghao manage to stay hidden for 15 years.

“You tell people about me?” Minghao asked incredulously.

“Yes and no that is another thing to talk about,” Chengcheng said. The only person he had ever told Minghao about was Linkai, Chengcheng wouldn’t say that the rest knew him, he was more of a presence than an actual person to them.

Minghao didn’t answer him. Did the fact that people know him upset him that much?

“I-”

“People aren’t supposed to know about me,” Minghao said just when Chengcheng was about to explain himself.

“Why?”

“I also don’t know, they are just not supposed to.”

Chengcheng still didn’t understand but he suspected that part of the reason was because if the southern realm spirits found out about his existence, then they would try to assassinate the boy before he could grow and become a threat.

“Even many people here don’t know about me. I don’t usually go out. The people I told you about, they are the only people I interact with.”

Now Chengcheng felt bad for the other boy. He didn’t choose to be born strong and now he had to endure a sad life because of it.

“But I have you to talk to now so it’s all good.”

Chengcheng came to tell him that he couldn’t come often because he had to practice. How would he break the news now?

“About that- Minghao there is something else I need to tell you. Keep this a secret, okay?”

It was silence for a moment before the other spirit spoke again,

“Go ahead.”

Chengcheng could receive death punishment because of this but fuck it, Minghao’s safety was more important.

“My sister is preparing to wage a war with your realm.”

There it came again, the power seeping through the wind channel. It was stronger than the one Chengcheng felt before but It was gone as quickly as they came.

“You might have guessed it but the reason was because of your accidental attack.”

The power seeping came again and was also gone as quick as the previous one. It seemed that Minghao had better control of them now but he still needed to improve more.

“I can’t come to meet you as often now because of training but I need to ask you to control your emotions better, okay? We might be able to avoid any kind of fighting if nothing ever happens again.”

The best way to prevent the war was controlling the source directly. Chengcheng knew that Minghao, though he never said it, actually listens to what he says even though he always thinks that the older was an idiot.

“I will try my best.”

Minghao said with determination. He was raised to become a weapon for war but he didn’t want to be one.

“Okay then let’s go back to where we left off last time. What was that thing about your brother eating 5 pieces of marbles?”

❁❀❁

The war was actually prevented and Chengcheng was proud of himself.

In the past two years, nothing had happened. No more signs of aggression, no more attacks, nothing at all.

Though they rarely met, since Chengcheng was getting busy with increased workload as he aged, he could see how the other boy had improved his control over his power so much.

During the times when they were connected over the wind channel, Chengcheng didn’t sense the other power seeps as often anymore even when they were talking about sensitive topics like Minghao’s older brother.

Lately, Minghao always got so worked up whenever he was talking about Huang Xinchun.

Xinchun was Minghao’s only friend when he was young. Both of them came from the same mother and Xinchun wasn’t actually much older to him, well there was still a ten years age gap between them but it wasn’t as far as him with his half brother Zhu Zhengting who was around 200 years older than him.

Zhengting’s mother was one of the northern realm’s most famous war generals known for her beauty and strength. She had died during the great war where the south had gained a massive victory. To honour her, Zhengting was told to use her surname instead of his father’s.

His father remarried another woman several years later and gave birth to both Xinchun and Minghao. Unlike Minghao who was born with extraordinary power, Xinchun was nothing special. In fact, his power was amongst the bottom tier for a royal born.

The only thing that Xinchun had more than the others was kindness. He was the kindest human being ever who never changed despite being treated so badly by everyone around him.

Minghao would laugh heartily when he told him fun memories about him and would turn like a completely different person when he was talking about the things his parents had done to him.

Chengcheng didn’t know what he could do. It wasn’t like he could just send a message to the northern realm and tell them to be nicer to Xinchun hell, that would trigger a war by itself.

Chengcheng always tried his best to just listen to Minghao’s rant since he wasn’t good for advice. Minghao was the one good at giving advice but against his parents, there really wasn’t much he could do.

Minghao was doing so well but his brother’s abuse was like a ticking time bomb.

And a ticking bomb was meant to set off one day.

It happened one peaceful afternoon (in Chengcheng’s opinion), he was having tea with his gang while watching Ziyi and Linkai play Go when his vision suddenly blackened out.

When he opened his eyes the next time, he was in the dreamscape with Minghao and the other boy was crouching in front of him with a frantic look on his face. He was holding his head in his arms and tears were streaming down his face.

“Minghao, what happened?”

They had agreed not to meet in a dream anymore because it was dangerous if they got detected.

“Cheng, I fucked up. I fucked up, what should I do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh O_o


	5. Giving you my forever without hesitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cheng, I fucked up. I fucked up, what should I do now?”
> 
> “What should I do?”
> 
> “I don’t know.”
> 
> They said that time will resolve everything. Maybe they will, given that the problem is small.
> 
> But if the problem is big? Who knows, all Chengcheng could do was put his hands together and pray to all the gods he had never worshipped before.

“Minghao, what happened?”

They had agreed not to meet in a dream anymore because it was dangerous if they got detected.

“Cheng, I fucked up. I fucked up, what should I do now?”

Minghao was grabbing the front of Chengcheng’s hanfu tightly, pulling the older close to his face.

“What should I do, we are going to die. I started this, I started this.”

Chengcheng didn’t understand what was going on but based on how panicked the other was, even to the point of calling him into a dream out of nowhere, he must have lost control.

“Calm down a little, hey.”

Minghao’s whole body was shaking and his eyes were unfocused. His breathing also didn’t sound good.

“What happened?”

Chengcheng tried to stay calm but Minghao’s continuously panicked state was making it difficult. He wasn’t exactly the emotionally strong person around.

“I- I tried to sneak out today with gege but we got caught. Father started beating him up and I- I---”

And I lost control. Minghao didn’t need to finish it. Chengcheng had always known that Xinchun would have caused it one day.

“I didn’t even realize it happened. All I could hear was the scream carried by the wind channel I accidentally connected to.”

Chengcheng didn’t know how to make the situation sound positive. What could he say, maybe they weren’t screaming in pain?

“Maybe it wasn’t connected to a southern channel.”

That was the best assurance that Chengcheng could muster. How could Minghao be so sure that it wasn’t his own people that he was hurting.

“We were caught in the place we usually talked.”

Okay, there was a 90% chance that Minghao’s suspicion was right. Shit.

“What should I do?”

Minghao sounded so desperate as he asked that question and frankly, Chengcheng didn’t know how to answer. He just stood there and stared in disbelief.

They never met each other in real life before, he never expected that the first time they met would be on the battlefield. That wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

“I don’t know.”

For the next few minutes, neither of them said a thing. Minghao was still holding the front of Chengcheng’s hanfu but the grip was weakening with time. He also stopped crying but the broken look was still there and would probably stay there for a very long time.

“You need to go back,” Minghao said as he let go of Chengcheng. He seemed much calmer now maybe that was the reason he brought Chengcheng to his dream. The other boy made him calm.

“Let’s try to figure things out,” Chengcheng said. Slowly but surely, the landscape around him started to blur. The grassland, the sky, and the mountains in the distance began to mold together into a white picture.

“Ge! He’s waking up.”

Chengcheng heard Linong’s shouted and soon, four other familiar faces flooded his vision. He was back.

“What happened to you?”

Zhangjing asked as he helped Chengcheng to sit up. Worry was written all over his face as he gently put one of his hands on Chengcheng’’s back to steady him.

“Did something happen?”

Chengcheng asked, ignoring the older’s question. There was a more pressing matter at hand.

Just like that, everyone’s face immediately turned from worried to appalled. So, something really did happen, that wouldn’t be good.

“Cheng, we are going to war,” Linkai answered him with a dark voice. He was the only one who was aware of his whole rendezvous with Minghao and must have suspected a thing or two about who would be responsible for the current situation.

“I’m not hiding this anymore,” Linkai said. He had kept everything a secret for so long and at this point, there was literally no point in hiding it anymore.

“Hiding what? What did I not know?” Ziyi asked. He was looking at his brother with a look of betrayal before looking at Chengcheng with the same expression.

“The perpetrator of this whole thing-”

“He wasn’t the perpetrator,” Chengcheng cut the other off while glaring at him.

“He was, I know he did all this-”

“He wasn’t, don’t word it that way,”

“How else should I say it then?”

“He couldn’t control it Linkai, it was an accident-”

“Which he was still responsible for and now so many more are going to die-”

“No one is going to die-”

“Both of you shut the fuck up!”

Zhangjing rarely cussed, he always wanted to set a good example for them. The fact that he was cursing now meant a very big deal.

“Chengcheng explain yourself now.”

In a matter of seconds, all pairs of eyes, except for Linkai who was looking away, were on him. Good job making him more nervous.

“Two years ago, when I was playing around the common wind channel, I accidentally got connected to someone from the northern-”

“You what?” Ziyi asked incredulously. One of his hands was already reaching for the sword hilt, ready to attack if necessary.

“C-calm down. I wasn’t betraying the country. I didn’t tell him anything, except for embarrassing stuff you guys do. Minghao and I just talked about our daily life.”

“You and who?”

Yanjun finally spoke for the first time. Right, they didn’t know that Minghao exists.

“The guy who caused this whole thing.”

Linkai beat him to answering. Chengcheng glared at him again and the other wind spirit glared back. This time, Linkai wasn’t anywhere near backing down.

“There is someone that powerful in the northern realm?” Linong said in disbelief. The other three in the room all shared the same reaction except of course, Linkai who was still looking at him with much resentment.

“Remember the attack two years ago? That was also him except now there are 50 other wind spirits dead.”

Chengcheng suddenly felt cold from the statement. Minghao’s outburst had killed 50 wind spirits, this wasn’t going to be good.

“If only you decided to tell us earlier.”

Zhangjing was already holding his head. His whole body was shaking as he said, “Now the prophecy is going to come true.”

Fuck. The prophecy. Chengcheng thought he had done a good job preventing it and keeping the person he loved safe at the same time. He should have known better that he couldn’t have both.

Hold up, did he just say love? Fuck, this wasn’t the time for feeling realization and denial.

“I thought I did a good job as his keeper. I thought I had everything under control-”

“What do you have under control?”

Fan Bingbing’s powerful voce beamed into the room as she gracefully entered. Nobody dared to speak a single word as she eyed each one of them.

“What were you talking about earlier? What was that thing about being a keeper?”

Bingbing asked as she stared deeply into Chengcheng. She was so scary even Chengcheng couldn’t form the guts to lie.

And it wasn’t like he could lie either with Linkai in the room.

“It was nothing.”

But he still tried. If there was the slightest chance he could escape, then he would.

“Is he telling the truth?” Bingbing averted his gaze from Chengcheng to Linkai. Being stared like that by the queen, there was no way Linkai would lie to save his sorry ass no matter how good of a friend he was.

“No,” Linkai answered quickly before turning his head, unable to withstand Bingbing’s gaze anymore.

“Go on,” Bingbing said as she looked at Chengcheng once again. Her eyes were cold and there was that power seeping aggression as she glared at her younger brother. The situation was very very tense.

Chengcheng eventually spilled everything in even more detail than he did when he was telling his friends before. Whatever happened after this, Chengcheng just hoped he could stay alive.

Bingbing didn’t say anything as Chengcheng finished talking. She didn’t look that angry anymore, the glint on her eyes was something akin to disappointment than anger.

“Lock my brother up,” She said while gesturing for the two guards at the door to come forward.

“You can’t do this; I am one of the good fighters. You will need me,” Chengcheng said. He was already preparing himself to stand up and run but the murderous look on his sister’s eyes quickly stopped him in his tracks.

“I would rather lose one good fighter than having a traitor on my side. Be grateful that you are my brother or else I would have killed you already,”

Her words carried finality. No one dared to talk back to her and Chengcheng knew his fate was sealed.

❁❀❁

“You have to help me.”

Chengcheng said to the closed door. Though it might seem like he was crazy for talking when there was no one else around, Chengcheng was sure that Linkai was there on the other side of the door.

“How do you know that I am here?”

See, he was right. Linkai was there, of course he would be. Almost everyone in the Zephyr Palace had left two days ago for the war, leaving only a few behind.

Linkai and Zhangjing were a part of those left behind, Zhangjing being sort of a dreamcatcher and wasn’t that good in fighting in the first place and Linkai because well, he was banned by Ziyi from going. The older must be still salty about it.

“You don’t have anyone else to hang out with. I am still your best bro.”

Chengcheng could hear Linkai’s sigh through the window. He knew he was right.

“I can’t sneak you out,” Linkai said, already knowing what Chengcheng was going to ask for.

“Why not?” Bingbing wasn’t around, other higher officials weren’t around to watch them. If he was to escape, now would be the perfect opportunity.

“I am not going to become a traitor,” Linkai said. His voice shook a bit as he spoke indicating that the other wind spirit really was afraid.

“It will be on me, come on,” Chengcheng pleaded. He was desperate, he needed to be there. Chengcheng was sure that he could do something to stop Minghao or more importantly, preventing the forgotten prophecy from coming true.

“Why are you doing so much for him anyway? You know us for 19 years, you know him for two.”

Linkai sounded hurt as he spoke. Chengcheng was actually quite surprised by the sudden display of emotion, he never expected his actions could be interpreted that way.

“Please bro, I love him.”

Chengcheng could feel his breakfast rising as he said the last three words. Confessing that you liked someone was never his thing, it was gross but Chengcheng had to try and convince the older.

“You never met him. You barely know this Minghao,” Linkai replied back. He sounded tough but Chengcheng knew that his determination was slowly seeping. He was still Chengcheng’s best friend after all, his bro’s happiness was always a priority.

“I just know.”

That answer was vague but Chengcheng said it with so much certainty that it actually sounded like a legit convincing sentence.

“Fine but it’s on you,” Chengcheng could hear the sound of a lock getting unlocked and his heart immediately soared. He knew he could always trust the older.

“Come on, let’s ask Zhangjing-ge if we could use the portal.”

The portal was, well Chengcheng wasn’t sure what to call them, but it was something like a teleportation system. It could be used to travel from one place to another quickly but the success chance was very low. Many wind spirits either got sent to a weird place, got stuck in the portal, or worse only got some parts of their body travelled but not the rest (read: mutilation).

It was a dangerous thing that wouldn’t be used unless there was an emergency. This situation was an emergency in Chengcheng’s opinion at least.

They reached the dream catcher temple in no time. Zhangjing looked so surprised at the arrival of the two and was about to scream at them had it not been for the fact that Linkai quickly jumped and slapped a hand over the older’s mouth.

“Wait, don’t scream ge. You need to help me.”

Zhangjing glared at the two of them, he looked like he was about to scream again but held back knowing Linkai still had his hand over his mouth.

Once they were sure that the older wouldn't scream, Linkai slowly lifted his hands up.

“What do you brats need?”

Zhangjing still looked pissed as he glared at the two of them. Well, he had a valid reason since one of them wasn’t supposed to be here so the two must have worked together to go against the command.

“I need to use the por-”

“No.”

“I didn’t even finish my sent-”

“No.”

“Come on ge, don’t be such a stick in the mud.”

“Do you want to get mutilated?”

Zhangjing was probably more worried about his safety more than anything else. It was his job to worry when dealing with kids who never listened to adults and always did whatever he wanted.

But Chengcheng was sure at some point he could be responsible for his own decisions.

“I need to stop your prophecy.”

Okay, that was a low blow. Chengcheng wasn’t supposed to mention that since that thing still gave Zhangjing nightmare sometimes but he was desperate.

“You don’t know what you are talking about.”

Zhangjing’s nostrils were flaring with slight anger. Chengcheng was out of line for saying that.

“I know. The boy in that prophecy is my friend, no, probably more than that. If there is anyone who can stop him, it’s me.”

Zhangjing looked contemplated at the fact. Chengcheng wasn’t wrong, based on his stories, he was the only one who had control over the unstable wind spirit’s emotion.

“If this doesn’t work-”

“It’s on me I know. Now hurry up.”

Finally agreeing on the same thing, the three of them now made their way to the forbidden area of the temples.

The portal was located at the back of the temple in a windowless room with a door that was locked by twenty different types of locks so that it would be impossible for unauthorized access.

Thank god they had an insider.

“Be careful, okay.”

Zhangjing said to Chengcheng who was standing in front of the portal. He hugged the taller wind spirit one last time before enchanting some spells to turn on the portal.

“It’s ready.”

Chengheng had expected there would be some sort of purple spiral or distorted wavy kind of image in between the two poles that supposedly hold the portals but he literally couldn’t see the difference between before the portal is on and not.

“Are you sure?”

Chengcheng asked in doubt. Zhangjing rolled his eyes slightly before nodding.

“Of course, I know my thing.”

Forgive him; he never used them before. The portal was less dramatic than what he had always thought.

“Alright I’m gonna-”

“Wait, before you go.”

Chengcheng turned his head in confusion at the sudden call. If Zhangjing was going to be all dramatic again then he would dash mad towards the portal immediately.

“Why are you doing so much for this Minghao?”

Linkai asked the question before and two hours later, Chengcheng still didn’t know the answer for that. He just knew.

“It was like when you befriended that ice-cold Lin Yanjun for the first time, you also didn’t know why you did that right?”

Zhangjing was awestruck by the answer and before he could muster another reply, Chengcheng already walked through the portal, away from them to somewhere halfway across the world.

❁❀❁

When Chengcheng finally regained his senses, all he could register was the sound of screaming and blade clashing in the distance.

The good news was that he had managed to arrive in his destination with his whole body intact, not a single limb was missing and he still had his sword with him.

The bad news was that Chengcheng felt like puking everything he had eaten for the past three days out.

Travelling through a portal was quick and efficient but it gave you the feeling of being rotated a hundred times in 10 seconds. 10/10 definitely not recommended unless you were desperate like himself.

After collecting himself for another twenty minutes and gulping down anything that was about to come out, Chengcheng was finally ready to head out and find Minghao.

Of course, one wind spirit couldn’t end the whole war by himself but in Zhangjing’s prophecy, Minghao was the main actor of catastrophe. If he could at least make him sane enough, then he could prevent many deaths.

“You can do this Fan Chengcheng, you are amazing.”

Chengcheng chanted his prayer a few times before finally setting out. Once again, to all the Gods Chengcheng never prayed to and cared for before, please help this wind spirit out.

As he approached closer, Chengcheng could see more and more chaos unfolding.

There were already several corpses on the ground, some with black hair like himself and others with blond hair like Minghao’s. Some of them still had their body intact, some of them were…err. Not so lucky.

Chengcheng could even recognize some familiar faces. He could see Ziyi fighting someone else nearby. Chengcheng was so tempted to help him out but he couldn’t risk being found out and It didn’t seem like the older needed any help seeing how he easily slashed two enemies down at the same time.

‘Where is he?’

Minghao was powerful so Chengcheng was sure that if he was to fight anyone, it would be his sister who was undoubtedly the most powerful troop from the southern side.

“Are you Fan Chengcheng?”

Chengcheng almost broke a cold sweat at the mention of his name before realizing that the voice calling him was unfamiliar.

He turned around to the source of voice and was faced with a very beautiful man with long brown hair that was tied in a ponytail. He was wearing a white hanfu which in Chengcheng’s opinion was a bad decision seeing how it was now decorated with various shades of red and brown from the splashing of blood and dirt from the ground.

“Who are you?”

Chengcheng put one hand on his sword, ready to attack in case the other man decided to fight.

“Wait, I’m not here to fight you,” The other man quickly said. Chengcheng eyed him for a moment before realizing that the other man indeed had no intention to fight judging from the way his sword was still fitted inside its scabbard.

“My name is Zhu Zhengting. I think you know me from Minghao’s story. You are here looking for my half-brother, right?”

Ah, so this man was the Zhu Zhengting Minghao often talked about. The one who was always acting grossly in love in front of the younger.

Zhengting and Xukun were actually the two suspects of Minghao’s first complaint to him. The two, like them, had met by accident or should as Minghao had dubbed them back then ‘a romantic accident.’

The two of them didn’t meet in their own realm, they had met each other in the human realm when Zhengting’s mother was still alive and she punished him to stay in the human world as a result of accidentally breaking one of his mother’s favorite vases.

Zhengting who at that time was in the middle of cursing his mother as he walked on a bridge had accidentally bumped into a stranger and knocked away said stranger’s head.

And boom he met a guy so hot that Zhengting lost all kind of common sense.

He was still young back then, had never flirted or dated anyone. He didn’t know how to win the heart of the sexy probably non-wind spirit stranger.

So, he did the one thing that came to his mind; falling off the bridge which technically was not possible at all considering he was a wind spirit and well, he could float.

But long story short, the stranger, who turned out to be the legendary wind spirit Cai Xukun jumped off the bridge to save him, they fell in love, found out they were both wind spirits and got married 5 years later.

It was a beautiful story, the one that Chengcheng and probably Minghao to a certain extent wished to have compared to their own.

“How do you know I’m looking for him?”

Zhengting’s face suddenly turned grim at the question. His eyes were cast downwards and he was biting his lips in something akin to regret.

“Things were bad for him in the past few days. He didn’t seem like himself. Everyday he would ask me for Chengcheng so that he wouldn’t lose control and cause more mess but I couldn’t do anything.”

Right, Chengcheng was like Minghao’s safety pin. He was the only one who could calm him down when he was going crazy but Chengcheng had thought that the boy would be fine after their last encounter. It seemed that he wasn’t fine.

“I will-”

“WAIT, WATCH OUT!”

A southern wind spirit suddenly came up behind Zhengting and was about to cast a spell at him when Zhengting quickly kicked the other wind spirit into a nearby rock, causing him to faint.

Shit, he had attacked someone from his own side now he probably couldn’t even go back home.

“Thank you,” Zhengting looked shocked for a second before he regained his composure.

“You should go to him now, he has killed too much already.”

Zhengting grabbed the younger’s hand before quickly dragging him off to the other side of the battlefield. They didn’t even walk ten steps before Chengcheng could already sense a massive power clash coming from in front of them.

This must be his sister and Minghao.

“Ge, can I ask you something?”

Chengcheng knew it was inappropriate to ask some personal stuff now that they were in the middle of a battlefield but hey, he couldn’t help his curiosity.

“Sure, ask ahead.”

Zhengting sounded so kind. Had the situation been any different, Chengcheng was sure he and Zhangjing would get along well and he would probably like to have this person as his brother-in-law. Fuck, that was embarrassing to say.

“Why is your hair brown?”

As far as Chengcheng remembered, Minghao had blond hair and so did most of the wind spirits up in the north. That hair colour was distinct to that realm.

Zhengting let out a slight melodious laugh at the question. God, he even laughed pretty.

“My mother is of western realm descent,” Zhengting said. Chengcheng just dumbly nodded to show that he understood then realized that the older couldn’t see him from up front.

“Zhengzheng!”

Someone called out from their right. A handsome wind spirit with blond hair that was also tied in a ponytail approached them. He had full lips, a high nose bridge, and a mole on his left cheek.

Like Zhengting, this approaching wind spirit in Chengcheng opinion also wore the wrong cloth for the occasion as his light blue hanfu was badly stained by dirt and blood here and there. He looked good in that fit, though.

God, why is the northern realm full of good-looking people.

“Xukun, do you know where Minghao is?”

Zhengting asked the other wind spirit who Chengcheng now knew as Xukun. So, this was the powerful Cai Xukun that was suspected two years ago.

Chengcheng thought the man would look a bit more intimidating but in reality, he actually looked a bit cute. The fact that he was shorter than Chengcheng himself just added another plus point.

“He is fighting Fan Bingbing now which is a good thing since he is no longer releasing his power on other poor wind spirits who came close to him but I am not sure if he can win against her right now. Not in this state of mind.”

Chengcheng’s blood ran cold at the suggestion. All this time he always thought that Minghao and his sister’s power would balance in each other but Bingbing had way more experience in fighting ahead of her and with the way Minghao was not thinking straight right now, he could probably get killed by his sister.

“Take me to him quickly.”

Xukun sent him a weird glance. He probably didn’t realize that there was another wind spirit aside from Zhengting before. What love can do to you.

“Who are you?” Xukun asked in suspicion and Chengcheng could sense a kind of power seeping aggression from the other wind spirit as he stared at his and Zhengting’s entangled hand. Chengcheng quickly withdrew his hand from Zhengting’s hold to the older’s confusion.

“I am Chengcheng, Minghao’s friend,”

The aggression was immediately gone as soon as he said that. Chengcheng swore he could hear Xukun muttering ‘Ah, Haohao’s secret lover,’ but he might just be hallucinating it.

“Follow me.”

The three of them quickly made their way through with Xukun being in the front most. Normal wind spirits could probably sense how powerful he was that they naturally just backed away and continued their fighting elsewhere to give way to the three of them.

Fighting wasn’t so fun if you died in the first thirty seconds after all.

“You just need to get by these few people and he and your sister are right ahead. Nobody dared to intervene with the two of them but they both know you so I’m sure you will be okay.”

Nobody meant that even the ever so powerful Xukun himself didn’t dare to intervene. Now Chengcheng was nervous.

“Thank you both of you,” Chengcheng said and the two of them just gave him a small smile.

“Please save our little brother. Unlike most people, we also don’t entertain the idea of war that much.”

They were good people. Chengcheng also noticed that from the way they preferred to injure someone rather than directly killing them on the spot. Maybe northern wind spirits weren’t as bad as what the people around him made him think.

Chengcheng quickly slipped past the couple of clashing people before he finally saw his sister and Minghao.

The two of them were standing in the middle of the chaos in what in Chengcheng’s opinion was like a made-up fighting ring.

Just like what Xukun had said before, there were no fighting wind spirits who dared to come close to the two powerful spirits, they all formed sort of a circle around the two.

Bingbing was attacking Minghao furiously, combining both magic and sword fight in a fast yet controlled manner, a clear proof of hundreds of years of experience.

Unlike his sister, Minghao was a big mess. He was barely dodging his sister’s attack and most of the time he escaped was not because he could deflect her attack, it was more of him releasing a burst of power that automatically deflected the incoming spell or sword attack.

It was effective but for the long run, Chengcheng knew he couldn’t win this.

Chengcheng slowly made his way closer to the two of them. He was already halfway through the walk but neither Minghao or his sister had noticed his presence yet.

It was when he was about five meters away from where the two were standing that his presence was finally recognized and it wasn’t because they were able to detect his power but more because he started shouting.

That moment, Minghao was in the middle of having a breakdown after rows of power bursts that greatly exhausted him and Bingbing, seeing this opportunity was about to launch a sword attack at him.

Chengcheng of course had to save the love of his life.

“WATCH OUT!”

He quickly shouted and for a split second, Minghao who suddenly regained his consciousness, swiftly dodged the attack before landing down to where Chengcheng was standing.

“You…are here,” The short-haired boy said in disbelief. This was their first physical meeting with each other.

“Yes, you are safe now.”

The circumstance of their meeting wasn’t ideal, it was a mess and Chengcheng didn’t know which part of him being here was making the younger safe but he knew that the assurance was needed at the moment.

“Is this really you?”

Minghao’s eyes were already filled with tears and Chengcheng could feel that he was tearing up too. After two years of longing, they could finally see each other in person.

It was a touching moment. They should be hugging, laughing and crying or even kissing each other but once again the situation wasn’t ideal.

And Fan Bingbing saw this moment as nothing but an opportunity.

“NO!”

Both of them didn’t even have the time to react before the ugly flesh meeting metal sound was heard. It wasn’t a very loud sound but they were amplified a thousand times in Chengcheng’s ears causing them to ring badly.

“No, no, no.”

Fan Bingbing pulled her sword out of the northern wind spirit before smirking in victory. To her, this was a war winning moment. To Chengcheng, this was a nightmare.

“Minghao... Minghao...”

Chengcheng slowly approached the dying boy despite the weakness of his legs. Not only his legs, his whole body felt weak to the point that he just wanted to die.

Chengcheng had never lost someone before. He knew they were painful but experiencing it for himself was incomparable. It was a thousand times more painful.

“I’m sorry,” Minghao muttered weakly. He was clenching the part where the sword had passed through his body in a weak attempt to prevent further bleeding. It was too late, Minghao’s blue coloured hanfu was already soaked bright red.

“Don’t leave me.”

Chengcheng was crying and so was the dying wind spirit. What did they do wrong that they deserved such an ending for themselves?

Had Chengcheng known that meeting Minghao in real life would kill him then he would never meet him at all. He was naïve thinking that the Gods loved him.

Did this mean Chengcheng stopped the prophecy? Did this mean he saved everyone?

Fuck everyone. He didn’t want to prevent a goddamn prophecy just to save a bunch of strangers who looked down on him on the daily in exchange for the one person he loved.

‘Fuck, they really don’t want to bless me because I’m lazy,” Chengcheng thought as he clutched Minghao’s dying body closer to him. The other spirit was so weak right now he didn’t even have the strength to clutch onto the wound anymore.

‘Wait,’ Chengcheng suddenly realized, ‘I have a blessing.’

He had only used that power once in the past and never used it for the past two years that he had almost completely forgotten about said power’s existence.

That power could save Minghao.

Maybe the Gods didn’t hate him after all.

Chengcheng closed his eyes to focus himself. To be honest, he didn’t know how to activate that power, the thing back then with Linkai had happened unconsciously.

Though he did remember feeling a slight remorse at the older back then.

Slowly but surely, Chengcheng could feel it. The area around his stomach slowly began to hurt. Chengcheng could feel the slow opening of his skin as the wound gradually transferred to himself.

‘It’s working.’

The process was painful but Chengcheng was glad that in the end, he still managed to fulfill his goal. He was glad that in the end, he still managed to save his loved one.

Slowly but surely, Chengcheng could see Minghao’s previously limp hand began to move. It was a slow movement but those previously powerless arms were slowly clenching again.

Minghao was slowly gaining life while Chengcheng was losing his own.

His grip on the other wind spirit began to weaken. Chengcheng’s dark green hanfu began to soak blood though it wasn’t really visible due to the originally dark colour of the fabric.

Still, not seeing doesn’t mean things don’t happen. The wetness he felt was surely real.

Minghao didn’t seem to realize what was happening as he slowly blinked his eyes open. He must have given up on life before judging from the way he confusedly stared up at Chengcheng with his lips pouted.

Oh, how Chengcheng wished he could taste those lips once in his life thought now it was not possible anymore.

It didn’t take long before Minghao finally felt the wetness of the fabric pressing close to his cheeks. At first, he didn’t register what this liquid thing was but upon seeing the redness on his fingers after touching them, Minghao’s eyes immediately widened.

But everything was too late and the only thing Chengcheng could do was give one last smile. He must have looked like a big idiot right now.

He was hoping at least that idiotic expression would make the other boy laugh instead of crying but that was only wistful thinking. Of course Minghao would cry, how could he not when the person he had been loving for the past two years was dying in front of him, in his place?

“Chengcheng?”

That was the last thing Chengcheng heard before everything went black and Chengcheng had closed his eyes forever.

_“So, do you know what happened in the war?”_

_“I didn’t know much about it but I heard that something crazy happened. This was probably one of the most disastrous wars that both sides ever suffered!”_

_“What exactly happened?”_

_“Well, I heard that Huang Minghao from the northern realm and Fan Chengcheng from the southern realm were friends. During the war, Huang Minghao was badly injured and Fan Chengcheng died saving his friend using his blessing.”_

_“That’s it? That was the chaotic part?”_

_“No, what happened after that was the chaotic part. Huang Minghao killed everyone from both sides save for a few people before killing himself.”_

  
  
  
  


_I will slowly approach him,_

_reach out a warm hand_

_And tell him that tomorrow will be sunny_

Chengcheng blinked his eyes twice as he slowly woke up from his mini afternoon nap. Today was a perfect resting day, the sky was clear and the weather was fine, not too cold and not too hot.

A pristine white bird soared above Chengcheng’s head, blocking the sun for a bit before landing on his right shoulder. A letter was tied around its right leg.

_We are doing good; I hope you are doing well too -XG_

Chengcheng smiled a little at the letter before destroying it using his power. Thank god everyone was doing well after the tremendous event. He never expected that each one of them could reach a good ending, including himself.

After the devastating war that killed so many wind spirits, the two fighting kingdoms, under the guidance of their new leaders, had decided to join hands.

His sister, Fan Bingbing abdicated from her position and was replaced by Linkai’s older brother, Ziyi. The northern wind spirit king, Minghao’s father who was killed by his own son, was replaced by two new leaders, Minghao’s half-brother Zhu Zhengting and his husband Cai Xukun.

Now that the two kingdoms had joined hands, it was safe to say that peace had returned amongst the wind spirits. At least for the time being.

Not many people knew that Chengcheng was alive somewhere in this world, only people who were part of the council called seven percent which consisted of the closest confidants of both Minghao and Chengcheng knew about the fact.

And even they didn’t know where exactly the two of them were, all they knew was the fact that they were alive because in this new life, neither of them wanted to be found. They wanted a fresh start.

Chengcheng was no longer part of the northern wind spirit and so the first thing he did was stop dressing up as one. He no longer wore the same green themed hanfu, switching them to shades of grey or black.

His hair was also no longer long and black, they were now light brown and only reached to just below his shoulder. Chengcheng also tied them in a ponytail instead of keeping them loose like how he did back then.

And he no longer went by Fan Chengcheng instead he went by-

“ADAM.”

Chengcheng turned his head towards the direction of the voice. A bright toothy smile immediately formed on his face.

There, standing in light black hanfu with red stripes on the arm area was Ming- Justin, excitedly waving his hands at him. His hair was no longer short and blond, they were now black and reached all the way down to his waist. Two tiny braids, held together by a red ribbon at the back of his head, circled around Justin’s head like a crown.

Minghao quickly rushed towards him, enveloping in a tight bone-crushing hug. Chengcheng almost fell down from the impact but thankfully managed to regain his balance at the last minute.

“How was your day?”

“It was okay but readjusting to my large decrease in power was a bit difficult.”

After they both died and got revived thanks to Minghao’s blessings, the two of them had lost a significant amount of their original power. It might take some time before the two of them could finally reach the floating islands again but it didn’t seem like neither of them were planning to come back.

Joining in the human realm sounded like a much pleasant option.

“What do you want to do after we gain enough power?”

Chengcheng pulled away slightly from the hug so that he could face Minghao properly.

“Remember when I told you I want to be a rapper? Let’s try that out!”

Minghao was grinning excitedly at him and all of a sudden, the future in front of them felt so much brighter.

He also felt like kissing the other boy so much and so he did.

Minghao’s lips felt so sweet and even after having kissed them for so many times, Chengcheng still felt the same tingling sensation he felt the first time they did it. With the other boy, everything always felt so bright and wonderful.

“Wah, what?”

Minghao exclaimed in confusion, touching the tip of his button nose where Chengcheng had kissed him just moments ago. The act was quite difficult since Minghao had grown quite a few inches and was almost as tall as Chengcheng himself but Chengcheng didn’t mind having to tiptoe for the slightest bit. 

Today, he just felt like showering the other with love. So much love.

“Woah, what is up with you?”

In one smooth movement, Chengcheng quickly swept the younger off the ground and into his arms, carrying him in bridal style.

“Wow, wow, hey gege, what are you doing?”

Chengcheng felt like rolling his eyes at the other’s question. Minghao never called him gege unless, well, he felt like teasing Chengcheng and given the current mood, it worked really, really well.

“Shut up or I will drop you.”

Minghao knew that Chengcheng would never drop him but he still tightened his grip around the older’s neck regardless. It felt safe and secure in here, it felt safe and secure in Chengcheng’s arms even though both of them weren’t as powerful as before.

Chengcheng walked a few more steps before he gently dropped the younger on a stone perched up in front of an old pine tree next to the small river. 

This was the place where the two of them would spend their evening after a busy day of practicing and collecting necessities for themselves. The place where Minghao would lean his head on Chengcheng’s shoulder as the two of them watched the evening sun melt into the clear water of the small river.

Minghao still had his arm circled around Chengcheng’s neck even as he was fully off the older’s hold. He pulled on the other wind spirit’s neck, bringing their faces closer and closer until they were only millimeters apart.

Chengcheng could feel the other’s hold breath onto his face. To be really honest, the act was a bit unhygienic since they hadn’t done any cleaning or teeth brushing but he really couldn’t think so straight when he was just one step away from kissing the love of his life.

“You do it, gege.”

The younger smirked and Chengcheng couldn’t and wouldn’t resist. He made the first move and closed the distance between them.

Minghao’s lips felt so sweet and even after having kissed them for so many times, Chengcheng still felt the same tingling sensation he felt the first time they did it. 

Chengcheng moved his right hand to lightly hold the younger’s face while his left hand was circled around Minghao’s waist. The grip was neither strong nor aggressive, everything was tender just like how it always was because no matter how much he wanted to show his love to the other, that nagging feeling of having lost him once still persisted and Chengcheng was still afraid of seeing the other getting hurt no matter what the situation was.

Minghao was different. To him, every opportunity to be together with the older was invaluable and they should always make the most out of it because who knows when fate decided to play a cruel trick and decided to separate them again and for good.

“Cheng,” Minghao said as he pulled back slightly from the kiss. Chengcheng didn’t seem happy about the interruption and was about to go for the lips once again but Minghao was quicker, he untangled one of his hands from behind the other’s neck and put his index finger in front of Chengcheng’s lips, effectively stopping him.

“Stop walking on eggshells around me. We are safe now, I’m not going to die again.”

Chencheng didn’t say anything but he also wasn’t backing away from his position. He was probably having a mental fight in his brain right now.

“I’m not doing this if you are gonna be like this again,” Minghao sighed. Usually, it was always him who initiated a kiss, he had thought that when it was finally the other way around, Chengcheng would stop being so careful. He was wrong.

“You really won’t disappear?” Chengcheng asked shakily. Despite the shakiness in his voice, the grip on the younger’s waist remained firm and Minghao might be imagining this but he could feel said grip is tightening a little.

“I won’t. I will never disappear again.”

That was the only confirmation that Chengcheng needed. In no time, he was kissing the younger again and this time it wasn’t so gentle anymore.

Minghao’s back hit the trunk behind him roughly from the impact of the kiss. Had he been a normal human, then that collision would have hurt like hell but Minghao had been impaled by a damn sword before. This kind of pain was nothing to him.

For someone who claimed that he was never in a relationship before, Chengcheng sure was talented at kissing. Well, they had done their fair share of kisses before but all of them were simply pecks or just well connecting lips for a long time. This was the first time they would ever go beyond that point.

Chengcheng nibbled on the younger’s lips lightly, asking for access to which Minghao happily obliged by parting his own lips.

Many things would happen at once, one moment Chengcheng would be swiping his tongue across the younger’s full bottom lip and the next the same tongue would swipe across the roof of his mouth.

Minghao wasn’t ready for the sudden rush of feeling that he began feeling a bit delirious. He was slipping away but Chengcheng’s firm yet gentle grip on the back of his head would always reel him back in, keeping him in place.

Once the lock was opened, Fan Chengcheng wasn’t one who would be easily satisfied. 

He didn’t stop only at the mouth, slowly but surely, those now slightly swollen lips began making its way down Mingaho’s smooth jawline, kissing every single spot that it passed through.

It was a good thing that the two of them were currently making out in the middle of nowhere otherwise they would probably need to apologize for all the moans that Minghao was releasing as Chengcheng made his way further down his neck and into his upper torso.

Minghao’s hanfu was a mess, its upper part was aggressively slid off exposing his milky white shoulder who would soon be not very white anymore.

“Ack.”

Minghao squirmed lightly as Chengcheng bit down on his collarbone. The sound that the younger made was small but it was enough to bring Chengcheng back to reality.

“Are you okay?” Chengcheng asked, worry visible in his eyes, as he moved his head back up from where he was previously kissing along the younger’s collarbone.

“I’m okay but you are ruining the mood right now.”

Minghao pouted jokingly. He moved his two hands which were just gripping Chengcheng's long hair tightly seconds ago in favour of squeezing the older’s cheeks lightly.

“I’m really fine, hey, I am still stronger than you. It will take much more than this to kill me.”

Minghao hoped that was reassuring enough but as of now, there was no way to get Chengcheng back into the mood. They could leave it up for another day, their journey together still had a long way to go.

“Let’s go back and clean up now.”

Minghao pushed the older away before fixing up the upper part of his cloth. It was now all wrinkly and ugly but there really wasn’t anyone else here aside from Chengcheng to judge him anyway.

“Let’s go.” Chengcheng said as he held out one of his hands to help the younger stand up.

“The one reaching home later has to cook for dinner and wash the dishes,” Minghao said as he ran past Chengcheng, ignoring his stretched-out hand. The older just clenched his ignored hand in mock frustration before turning around to chase after the younger. 

“COME BACK HERE, YOU ARE NOT GIVING A FAIR FIGHT.”

Chengcheng shouted as he chased after the brown-haired wind spirit who just gave a boisterous laugh in response. There was no way he was going back for a fair start.

If you ask Chengcheng what happiness is then there would only be one answer, being together with Minghao was happiness.

_“So, what am I supposed to do?” Seventeen years old Minghao asked the astral being around him. He sounded way too disinterested for someone who was about to receive a blessing._

_“Pick one of these for yourself,” The astral being replied. Power, intelligence, good looks, everything that Minghao already had._

_“I don’t need it, I have them all,” the astral being laughed at his answer._

_“This is my first time hearing this kind of response, you really are way too interesting.”_

_The astral being said in amusement, Minghao just snorted at the statement._

_“Then how about this? Because I like you, I will give this to you as a blessing. I’m sure that you will at some point, need a happy ending.”_

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, if you are reading this note, congratulations! You made it into the end. Please don't kill me for all the angst and I hope you enjoy the story and my sorry attempt a writing fluffy scene :D 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for bearing with me! Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> P.s. you are amazing if you can guess which song lyrics i took the title from :D


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